Parallel Acquisition of Airborne and Satellite Nighttime Datasets over Oldenburg

Abstract

In this paper we describe the first parallel nighttime remote sensing data acquisition from airplane and satellite. DLR planned a nighttime acquisition in June 2022 over Oldenburg with an aircraft from its own research fleet carrying the 3K camera system. In the scope of a science proposal it was possible to obtain nearly in parallel nighttime satellite images from the Jilin-1 satellite imagery products of Changguang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. provided by HEAD Aerospace. The result of this cooperation is for the first time a direct comparison of a parallel aerial and satellite nighttime acquisition of a city. This paper presents as background the recording of night lights for energy system analysis, the prerequisites and processing of the data sets as well as a comparison of the different types of data. Furthermore, challenges which arose during this unique dataset generation are discussed. After a comparison of the data sets and their results, lessons learned and a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each dataset concludes the article.