LoneSky

I have made an addon for the World of Warcraft community that can be used to solve the Solar Collector puzzle in Uldum. DOWNLOAD Download the release version (2.0.1) on CurseForge or search for SolarCollector on the Twitch Desktop App. DOWNLOAD BETA There is no development version at the moment. The release version is the most up to date. Download the development version (9.0.2) of the addon here . Unzip the file in your World of Warcraft addons folder, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_retail_\Interface\AddOns\ Release Notes (2.0.1) • Updated for 9.0.2 Shadowlands Pre-Patch. Release Notes (2.0.0) • Updated for 9.0.1 Shadowlands Pre-Patch. Release Notes (1.3.2) • Added an error sound if the Solve button is pressed for an already completed puzzle. Release Notes (1.3.1) • In puzzle mode, pressing the Solve button will now clear the previous solution before recalculating a new one. • Shuffle will no longer randomly activate all five check buttons. ...

Now that this blog has accumulated a few posts with code—either Python or SVG—that is intended to be copied by the user, it would be nice to find a more clear and convenient way to present it. I would prefer to learn the necessary markup on my own—I already added buttons to highlight and automatically copy code to the Clipboard—but I'm curious to see how a dedicated service does it. One option is Prism for syntax highlighting and line numbering and GoFile for free hosting of the prism.css and prism.js CDN files (and perhaps the SVG files as well). This is not an advertisement or endorsement for either service—particularly GoFile, which seems too good to be true, frankly. I just want to do a test for now. [Edit: GoFile does have a major catch: I just read the FAQ and files may be deleted after 10 days of inactivity. Time to start using Google Drive finally.] Here is the "Coy" theme for Python syntax styling with optional line numbering added: # Define var...

Here is my current Python script for GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites. If you followed the GOES Satellite Data Download tutorial and saved the file as suggested you need only change the path variable in the script. For example, if your path looks like this: E:/goes-16-data/full-disk/multi-band/2020/0415/1430/ The path variable will be this: path = 'E:/goes-16-data/full-disk/multi-band/' Do not include the YYYY/MMDD/hhmm/ part of your path; the script assumes you used this directory structure and will handle it automatically. Also don't forget the quotes and forward slash at the end!

Here is my current Python script for Himawari-8. If you followed the Himawari-8 Data Download tutorial and saved the files as suggested you need only change the path variable in the script. For example, if your path looks like this: D:/himawari-8-data/2020/0415/0500/ The path variable will be this: path = 'D:/himawari-8-data/' Do not include the YYYY/MMDD/hhmm/ part of your path; the script assumes you used this directory structure and will handle it automatically. Also don't forget the quotes and forward slash at the end!

GOES-16 and GOES-17 have no green band so one has to be created from the blue, red, and near-infrared channels. But no amount of simple blending of those channels will produce a truly accurate synthetic green band so additional processing—e.g. a look up table (LUT)—is usually necessary to further compensate. For demonstration purposes I'll be using mostly Himawari-8 imagery in this post. Himawari and GOES share the same imager with reasonably similar blue, red, and near-infrared bands. The big difference, of course, is Himawari includes a visible wavelength green filter (though at a wavelength that is not ideal for true color). GOES prioritizes a unique near-infrared filter in place of a green one. By combining blue, red, and near-infrared channels Himawari will produce approximately what GOES is capable of. This can then be compared to Himawari imagery using its RGB filters (with a little near-infrared added to boost the vegetation signal). Here is a commonly cited GOES synt...

Data from GOES-16 and GOES-17 is free and easy to obtain, especially since Brian Blaylock created an excellent interface to download the multitude of available products from these satellites. [Update: May 28, 2026] Use the satellite data download page for working links. DOWNLOAD GOES DATA Start by going to the link here: http://home.chpc.utah.edu/~u0553130/Brian_Blaylock/cgi-bin/goes16_download.cgi For this tutorial we are primarily interested in full disk GOES-16 data. We will be using imagery from the same day as in the Himawari 8-tutorial but this time at 14:30 UTC. As with Himawari-8, we will download 2000-meter resolution data. The difference is all 16 available bands are contained in a single file rather than four individual files. From the Domain drop-down menu select Full Disk . From the Product menu select ABI L2 Cloud and Moisture Imagery (Multi-Band Format) . From the Date menu select 04/15/2020 . From the Hour (UTC) menu select 14 and click the Submi...

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABOM) has made Himawari-8 data freely available to the public as far as I can tell. The agency has posted fully accessible links to the files at NCI via THREDDS . Although there is some contradictory wording about whether or not you need to register, you will not be prompted to do so. ABOM does require citation but this is a quite reasonable request. DOWNLOAD HIMAWARI-8 DATA Start by going to the link here: https://thredds.nci.org.au/thredds/catalog/catalogs/ra22/satellite-products/arc/obs/himawari-ahi/fldk/fldk.html [Update: May 27, 2026] All THREDDS server links have been updated. Data is available from as far back as 2015. For this tutorial we will be downloading full-resolution files from 05:00 UTC on April 15, 2020, a particularly clear day over much of China. This will make a 11000 x 11000 image. [Update: March 22, 2024] It appears that only full-resolution files are available now. That means blue, green, and infrared bands a...

In preparation for working with free, publicly available Himawari and GOES satellite data first you will need to install Python on your system. Python is a high-level programming language, but let me stress that you will not need to do any coding yourself; the necessary scripts will be provided in subsequent blog posts. This tutorial is for Windows 10 but Python is available for other operating systems. The installation procedure is relatively straightforward even when installing in a sandbox environment. We will be using a free minimal version of Anaconda—a Python data science platform—called Miniconda, along with a few necessary packages needed to read and work with the satellite data. DOWNLOAD MINICONDA Download Miniconda3 Windows 64-bit (Python 3.7 version) here: https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html INSTALL MINICONDA Run the installer you just downloaded. You can choose to install Miniconda for all users or just the current user. I chose Just Me from the menu...

This is an approximately true-color image of Earth as captured from the GOES-16 (now GOES-East) geosynchronous satellite. The image was acquired on August 8, 2018: Earth as imaged by the GOES-16 satellite. The image was first processed using a Python script I wrote then imported into a paint program to make the final color adjustments. I hope to detail the procedure in a future blog update so others can experiment with it. Unlike GeoColor imagery, the intent here was to present a view closer to what a human observer would see. Unfortunately because no green filter was included on GOES-16 it is not possible to make a true-color image. The precursors to GOES-16—Himawari 8 and 9—do have a green filter (though not at the ideal wavelength) and are capable of more true to life views. Despite optimism that a work-around method would be utilized to generate a more accurate pseudo green channel and thus produce images closer to true color, so far I have seen no indication that it has...

We've seen the renderings and the scale model , but what will the proposed Air Force One actually look like in a real-world setting? Assuming President Trump can follow through on his plan for a new livery, this should give us a good idea: Air Force One takes off in the proposed livery by President Trump. I've been sitting on this rendition for quite some time; so long, in fact, that I forgot what it was I still wanted to work on before release. I suppose it's "good enough" though. UPDATE In light of the recent presidential election results it's safe to assume Air Force One will now retain its historical livery: President-elect Biden will almost certainly go with the traditional design. UPDATE [March 10, 2023] The Biden administration has selected a modified version of the traditional Raymond Loewy-designed livery for the upcoming Air Force One: A rendering of VC-25B featuring the new paint scheme. The new design differs slightly from the pr...

Here is a vector version of the late 1960s / early 1970s era "Sun King" logo for National Airlines:

This is cool: Chaidhat Chaimongkol has made a Java applet that downloads the latest Himawari-8 imagery from the Japan Meterological Agency and applies color correction based on or inspired by my post on this very subject. It then saves it as a desktop wallpaper, continuously updating as new imagery is released. Himawari8SatDesktop Java applet by Chaidhat Chaimongkol. I have not tried it yet as it will require some version of Java runtime environment. I'm looking for a portable implementation that will not need to be installed in Windows 10, possibly jPortable64 or OpenJDK JRE Portable 64-bit . Here is an animation, presumably made from individual frames: Download the Himawari8SatDesktop applet here: https://gist.github.com/Chai112/5006fc94c98d22cae598749c7de86717

Watch the Aegean Airlines A320neo debut live at 13:30 UTC / 8:30 a.m. EST on February 12, 2020! UPDATE As anticipated, the new livery is very similar to the prediction in my earlier post . I'll have more to say about it there, along with updated information and the first plane spotter photos. Here are some highlights from the reveal: The first Aegean Airlines Airbus A320neo with title and tail illuminated during the unveiling ceremony. The new livery for Aegean Airlines is finally revealed. Aegean Airlines CEO Dimitris Gerogiannis (left), Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (center), Aegean Airlines Chairman Eftychios Vassilakis (right).

I am trying to figure out why the "hero" image for the WHEN LIVERY DESIGN GOES BAD post is not showing on the home page when it is the featured post. It also looks like when it is moved to the recent posts list it is not properly spaced above the post below it. UPDATE It turns out the problem was an improperly placed <i> (italic) tag before a <blockquote> tag in the HTML markup. [Update: April 23, 2020] It seems even properly placed italic tags can cause this problem, at least with this template or Blogger itself. Instead of tags, use inline markup instead: <span style="font-style: italic;"></span> (or other CSS style methods)

One of the criticism of the possible Aegean Airlines livery from the previous post is it does not look very Greek (I agree). My guess is they wanted to maintain a connection and continuity with the old logo featuring two stylized seagulls while "freshening" up the design.

Early in November 2019 Airbus rolled out the first Aegean Airlines A320neo in the company's new livery and aviation enthusiasts were quick to notice and photograph the event: The new livery for #Aegean will be showing soon!!!! https://t.co/FVSorJdzJM — Clément Alloing (@CAlloing) November 9, 2019

Microsoft announced an update to its Flight Simulator series at the 2019 E3 convention. I must admit it made me sit up in my chair when I watched the trailer for the first few times.

We are finally getting a first look at the proposed livery change to Air Force One. Assuming the colors are the official colors of the flag , here is a rendition of it: President Trump Air Force One design.

What could a "red, white and blue" Air Force One possibly look like? With work on a new fleet of Boeing 747-8 aircraft now underway and President Trump's expressed desire to change the iconic Air Force One livery to "something more American," I decided to attempt a new design just for fun. This turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined it would. Air Force One is one of the most recognized liveries in aviation history by one of the most respected industrial designers— Raymond Loewy . While I think elements of it look dated—particularly the blue tail "swoosh"—it's still unique and elegant. I would much prefer to see its continued use than to see a bland new livery. I humbly acknowledge my offering will fall squarely in that category for many people. As a regular visitor to Airliners.net I know how divided opinions are whenever a new livery is revealed. So with that caveat, and with some trepidation, here it is: Updated November ...

This is a colorized image I rather quickly made from an old (ca. 1875) photograph of an unknown Chinese-Filipino woman taken by Dutch photographer Francisco Van Camp. "A Mestiza de Sangley" - Francisco Van Camp, ca. 1875 / Colorization by LoneSky.

This is a two-day color-enhanced composite from GOES-16 taken June 2-3, 2017 (17:45:00 UTC) with simple cloud reduction processing. The individual image bands were provided by SSEC RealEarth . Credit: NASA / NOAA / SSEC - Modified by LoneSky.

This is an approximately true color composite image of the contiguous United States as captured by GOES-16 on May 17, 2017 (17:15:00 UTC) and remapped to Mercator projection for SSEC RealEarth . Credit: NASA / NOAA / SSEC - Modified by LoneSky.

Earth as imaged by Himawari-8 at nearly solar noon over Japan (11:50:00 JST / 02:50:00 UTC) on April 12, 2017. An experimental yet relatively simple method for intuitive color correcting the full resolution imagery presented by NICT ScienceCloud has been applied to approximate how the planet would appear to our eyes. SOUTH ASIA Southeast Asia and the Tibetan Plateau are seen in this rotated view. Note the persistent haze at the foot of the Himalayan Range. The mountains and plateau restrict the movement of precipitation (as well as aerosols) from the south resulting in the rain shadow deserts of central Asia. Credit: MSC of JMA / NICT - Modified by LoneSky.