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Old 17th Mar 2014, 00:39
  #4888 (permalink)  
tvasquez
 
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I have just now posted high-resolution visible satellite sectors for the eastern Indian Ocean between 0000 and 0200 UTC. This is the highest resolution data I have access to and is just barely within the range of being able to detect contrails. I have applied an enhancement curve that specifically brings out early morning contrast.

High-res visible sectors for Southeast Indian Ocean - 8 March 2014 - Weather Graphics

I don't know if this will have any practical value for finding the plane and I foresee people seeing all kinds of patterns in this data and perhaps even the face on Mars. But in my view it's better having more data out there rather than nothing at all. I do suggest treating all signatures as nothing conclusive and checking what you see against FR24 archives. This is provided as-is.

Most of the region is covered by marine-layer stratocumulus and will be similar in nature to the cloud layers that occur off the California coast in summertime. Unfortunately this region is subsident with fairly dry air, so contrails will generally not be seen here for planes below FL390.

If anyone sees anything definitive, I will locate it on my software and provide an exact lat/long coordinate set, but as I have a lot of other things going on, my time to explore this set is very limited. Feel free to copy the images, make animations, repost, or however you prefer to use the data.

Tim Vasquez
Weather Graphics
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