How to See Live Satellite Map Views

Satellites send back images of Earth to satellite dish receivers.

Currently, it is not possible to get live satellite images for every location by looking online. It is relatively simple to access live images of interesting and important places in the world, however, as a few sites are dedicated to providing live satellite feed for these particular sites. Eventually Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth and Flash Earth, who have been three big providers of satellite maps and imagery up until 2010, will, no doubt, work to make a live service available for the rest of the globe.

Instructions

1. Look at the webviews.co.uk website if you want to see landmark sites from around the world, including the UK and the United States. Webviews provides live aerial satellite maps of a long list of locations, including sites in the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Monaco and Greece. They also focus on live aerial maps of football stadiums, which is obviously handy for when games are being played. They concentrate, too, on celebrity houses -- for those who like to spend hours hoping to spot a glimpse, however distant, of their favorite star.

2. View more live satellite maps from around the world at Camvista.com. Their "Bird's Eye View" live aerial maps include images from Japan, China, Egypt, Belgium, Russia, Cuba and India -- to name a few. They show live aerial maps of football stadiums and celebrity houses, too, but also focus on live satellite feeds around and on UK airports.

3. See a different selection of live satellite images at 3planeta.com. Their live aerial maps include Central Park in New York, Hollywood, the Pentagon, Disneyland and The Statue of Liberty. While they have a leaning toward U.S. sites of interest, they do have places like The Pyramids of Gaza and The Greater Tower in Mexico on their list of sites they cover. 3planeta's maps are powered by Google and on their home page you can look at double live satellite maps showing the map view and ordinary satellite picture side by side. Change the coordinates of one and the other changes, too. Also, by using a live satellite map from a link on this page you can zoom in and out and click and drag around the map until you find a particular spot and the exact longitude and latitude will be displayed.

Tips & Warnings

• The ways in which you use these satellite maps are slightly different on each website, but all are simple to manipulate with commonly-used cursor techniques and selections made by clicking on boxes. There may be zoom in and out options and click-and-drag functions to move the map into the position you want. Also, at the top of the map there may be buttons to choose whether you want a normal satellite view, a road map view or a hybrid of the two.

• Don't expect to see vehicles moving or people walking around on the live satellite maps. You will be looking at a very up-to-date aerial view, but the best you are going to get at the moment is a still picture of the latest imagery.

References

• Webviews: Bird's Eye Aerial Views
• Camvista.com: Live Aerial Map Views
• 3planeta: The Third Planet
• 3planeta: Satellite Images Live

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish