From 1500 to 1900 UTC on 4 January 2024, GOES-16 was in Mode 4 (vs. the usual Mode 6) operations. Mode 4 scanning produces a full-disk image every 5 minutes. Mesoscale sectors and CONUS sectors are not scanned (although a CONUS sector can of course be subsected out of the... Read More

The animation of GOES-17 visible imagery (Band 2, 0.64 µm), above, (created at the CSPP Geosphere site) shows the characteristic signal of Sun Glint — the moving bright region. Sun glint (also discussed on this blog here, here, here, here and — for moonglint: here!) occurs when radiation from the Sun reflects... Read More

GOES-18 images shown in this blog post are preliminary and non-operational During its Post-Launch Testing (PLT) period, once GOES-18 drifted to a position close to its final “Operational GOES-West” longitude of 137º W, a “Barcode Artifact” of vertical striping was occasionally seen in colder scenes of Band 07 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm)... Read More

At 1500 UTC today, the Set Point temperature on the cryocooler was re-set to a cooler temperature (the effect of the warmer Set Point temperature is discussed here: Bands 10 and 12 had more lines of missing data related to the warming of the satellite by the Sun). The cryocooler... Read More