The Landsat Program - Education
Tutorials
Below are a number of tutorials to help you learn how to use, process, analyze and understand Landsat data.
about Remote Sensing
- Tracking Change Over Time
- A USGS publication that explains remote sensing basics and introduces users to Landsat data and the MultiSpec image processing software. Using the free MultiSpec program, students can track changes to the landscape over time.
- The Landsat 7 Compositor
- The L7 Compositor gives a visual explanation of color satellite images. This interactive site also provides information about the electromagnetic spectrum and the various wavelengths detected by the Landsat 7 satellite.
- Canada Centre for Remote Sensing's Tutorial:
Fundamentals of Remote Sensing (external link) - The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing tutorial focuses on remote sensing technology and its applications. It is an interactive module intended as an overview at a senior high school or early university level, and touches on physics, environmental sciences, mathematics, computer sciences and geography.
- Landsat 7 Science Data Users Handbook
- The Landsat 7 Science Data User's Handbook is a living document prepared by the Landsat Project Science Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Its purpose is to provide a basic understanding of the joint NASA/USGS Landsat 7 program and to serve as a comprehensive resource for the Landsat 7 spacecraft, its payload, the ground processing system, and methodologies for rendering Landsat 7 data into a form suitable for science.
- Remote Sensing Tutorial
- In 1982, Dr. Nicholas M. Short's “The Landsat Tutorial Workbook: Basics of Satellite Remote Sensing” book—also known as the “Remote Sensing Tutorial”—was published by NASA. The book is available as a historical document from the NASA Technical Reports Server. The online version of the Remote Sensing Tutorial is out of date and is no longer supported.
How to Obtain and Use Free Landsat JPEG Images
- LandsatLook Images
- LandsatLook images are full resolution ready-made Landsat images.. More specifically, they are JPEG files derived from Landsat Level 1 data products. They are available as subtentorial color images or thermal greyscale images. The images are compressed and stretched to create an image optimized for image selection and visual interpretation. LandsatLook images are very useful if you want a full-resolution image, but do not want to download the full data set and make a composite RGB image yourself. If you want step-by-step instructions on how to download LandsatLook images, follow these instructions.
