http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was taken
just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked trees stretched
across everything, making it nearly useless!

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006, John Rowland wrote:

They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was taken
just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked trees
stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!

That is in fact exceptionally bad. The shadows from buildings are pretty
bad too - streets are all but invisible.

tom

--
see im down wid yo sci fi crew

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was taken
just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked trees stretched
across everything, making it nearly useless!

Horrible. And shots are at least 8 months old - the house I live in is
still unfinished in the photo (still better then previous shot from
early 2005!).

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

John Rowland wrote:
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was taken
just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked trees stretched
across everything, making it nearly useless!

It's quite interesting though. At Waterloo International you can see
the first two and a bit cars of a Eurostar apparently separated from
the rest of the train due to movement in between successive
photographs. At present the southern border of the winter photo zone
passes through my old stamping ground, West Norwood. It appears to
bisect Royal Circus, which is neat.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was taken
just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked trees
stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!

It is pretty terrible I agree.

Must have been a Sunday morning, as my car was at my fiancées house rather
than at mine.

I see that somebody had pinched my reserved space back at my house whilst I
was gone!

Colin

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

John Rowland wrote:
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was
taken just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked
trees stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!

It can't be just after dawn, not everywhere anyway. Shadows in central
London (e.g. Nelson's Column) indicate that it's late morning, roughly
around 11:00. There's an event of some sort in Trafalgar Square. From
the works going on in Devonshire Road, Chiswick, I would say it was
around January or February this year. Colin says it must be a Sunday
morning. Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

At bbs.keyhole.com there is a forum where photo updates are announced

http://tinyurl.com/eg5p3

On October 3rd, we updated Google Maps and Google Earth with the
following new imagery:

- Cross Plains, Texas
- the whole state of Minnesota, South Carolina, North Dakota, Missouri
(updated to 2005), Idaho, Maryland, and now full coverage for the
entire state of Texas
- Updates to Florida (most of the state covered now)
- 15 high-resolution cities in Germany
- update for London, 2006 data at 10cm
- South Georgia Island (courtesy of the British Antarctic Survey)
- Albany, OR; Lubbock, TX; Port Townsend, WA; Portage County, OH;
Trumball County, OH
- 32 Digital Globe high-resolution cities (updates and new coverage)

In addition there was a significant update to the regular Digital Globe
imagery all over the world.

Enjoy!

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Also there is a thread started 3rd Oct headed, "why have you downgraded
the images of London?" with quite a few messages.

http://tinyurl.com/hsdod

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.

When was the work done to Ruislip Manor tube station? The hoardings on the
westbound platform are still up in the Google photos and the banking fresh
bare soil/earth - may help to date the photos

http://tinyurl.com/rydz4

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

"Thunderbug" typed



Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.

When was the work done to Ruislip Manor tube station? The hoardings on the
westbound platform are still up in the Google photos and the banking fresh
bare soil/earth - may help to date the photos

http://tinyurl.com/rydz4


I still went to choir at the time, so it would be before summer 2005
(possibly winter 2004-5).

I see the photo of the patch around my home (HA8 5LW) is still the
ancient one that predates my next-door neighbours' extension in 2002 and
the BACS building is still standing. live.local has more recent images.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

"Richard J." typed


John Rowland wrote:
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was
taken just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked
trees stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!

It can't be just after dawn, not everywhere anyway. Shadows in central
London (e.g. Nelson's Column) indicate that it's late morning, roughly
around 11:00. There's an event of some sort in Trafalgar Square. From
the works going on in Devonshire Road, Chiswick, I would say it was
around January or February this year. Colin says it must be a Sunday
morning. Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.

Looking at the area close to my parents' place in NW11, the sun is in
the south-southwest, making it about 1-2pm, the shadows are long, and
the silver birch in their front garden has been removed.

I note my abode is *just* outside the area of the updated image, which
is at the NW9/HA8 frontier.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

I still went to choir at the time, so it would be before summer 2005
(possibly winter 2004-5).

Wasn't that the Eastbound platform?

They did Eastbound first, then Westbound. The Metronet website has a press
release dated December 2004 to say that the Westbound work would be 9th July
to 31 Dec 2005, but I think the platform was opened a little early and then
the landscaping that they're doing in the photo was done later.

Another possibility of finding a date is the old Victoria Hall Adult
Education centre in Ruislip Manor (big building facing the carpark directly
south of the tube station - http://tinyurl.com/jv5dr) which is there in the
photo, but was flattened earlier this year. Planning permission was granted
for the redevelopment in December 2005 and I know it was flattened by July
2006, but that doesn't narrow it down much does it!

Must've been a weekend though, the carparks at the large shops in South
Ruislip are full. Check the monster tree shadows outside Wickes at
http://tinyurl.com/zocoh !

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Well, if you take a look at St. Paul's cathedral, there is a very good
shadow to work with.

In marine navigation, you know what day/time it is, and you calculate where
you are based on where the sun is. With this situation, you know where you
are at, so you solve for the other side of the equation.

First, the latitude here is about 51D30M49.90S

You can draw a line straight north of the dome, and calculate the time of
the exposure that way, like a sundial. some folks have responded about that
already.

Then, you can triangulate the length of the shadow, and the known height of
the dome. It's a bit uphill as you go north, I seem to recall, which may
shorten the shadow, so that should be taken into consideration.

With this, you will get the angle of the sun (declination). You now have a
known latitude, pretty close time of day, and (also pretty close) angle of
the sun.

With all of that, and this:

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geups.AShFJJgAg11XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2YW83ZnI 3BGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMwRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANNMDAxX zc0/SIG=13gfeq4il/EXP=1160336062/**http%3a//www.bath.ac.uk/%7eabsmaw/Facade/sunlight_01.pdf%23search='sun%2520position%2520glo be'

-that should get you to when the photo was taken.

Since I have to get to the gym yet today before going to some event I have
be at later, we'll let somebody else do the maths.

-RED





around January or February this year. Colin says it must be a Sunday

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Ralph Diehl wrote:
Well, if you take a look at St. Paul's cathedral, there is a very
good shadow to work with.

Except that you can't see how long it is, because it ends somewhere in
Newgate Street which is in shadow from nearer buildings, and also
there's a join there between two photographs.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Yes, I abandoned that object for about the same reason.

I'm playinng with the shadow of the tate modern chimney now, it's a bunch
clearer. Somebody said it was about 11am, it's not quite 11:30am according
to the angle I got.

I'm trying to remember the distance down to the river (how many feet lower
the river level is from the base of chimney), it's been nearly a year since
I was last there. (I live about 6K miles away from it)


RED



Except that you can't see how long it is, because it ends somewhere in

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Ralph Diehl wrote:
Yes, I abandoned that object for about the same reason.

I'm playinng with the shadow of the tate modern chimney now, it's a
bunch clearer. Somebody said it was about 11am, it's not quite
11:30am according to the angle I got.

I'm trying to remember the distance down to the river (how many
feet lower the river level is from the base of chimney), it's been
nearly a year since I was last there. (I live about 6K miles away
from it)

The river level varies by up to 7 metres depending on the state of the
tide, so that may not be a good shadow to choose.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

On Sun, 8 Oct 2006, Richard J. wrote:

Ralph Diehl wrote:

Yes, I abandoned that object for about the same reason.

I'm playinng with the shadow of the tate modern chimney now, it's a
bunch clearer.

The chimneys of Battersea Power Station are also very good.

Somebody said it was about 11am, it's not quite 11:30am according to
the angle I got.

I'm trying to remember the distance down to the river (how many
feet lower the river level is from the base of chimney), it's been
nearly a year since I was last there. (I live about 6K miles away
from it)

The river level varies by up to 7 metres depending on the state of the
tide, so that may not be a good shadow to choose.

Ah, but if we can deduce the height of the tide from a feature on the
Thames, we can correct for that. And we'd have a double-check on the date
and time via the tide tables. If you look at the Thames barrier or the
Woolwich ferry piers, you can see the tide is definitely on the flood, and
i'd say coming in at quite a rate, which would mean it was something like
halfway between low and high tide.

This stepped bank at the mouth of Barking Creek:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?z=19&l...6,0.096506&t=k

Could be useful, if we had some way of calibrating it! The mudflats at
Erith would also do.

Alternatively, how about the monumenty thing in Regent's Park:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?z=19&l...,-0.150633&t=k

Too short to measure accurately?

tom

--
When you mentioned INSERT-MIND-INPUT ... did they look at you like this?

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Then, you can triangulate the length of the shadow, and the known height
of the dome. It's a bit uphill as you go north, I seem to recall, which
may shorten the shadow, so that should be taken into consideration.

With this, you will get the angle of the sun (declination). You now have a
known latitude, pretty close time of day, and (also pretty close) angle of
the sun.

That's all way beyond my abilities!

I could read a sundial though, I'm sure... is this one?
http://tinyurl.com/rjjs2

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:
I still went to choir at the time, so it would be before summer 2005
(possibly winter 2004-5).

When I had a look at google maps last I noticed that the Load of Hay
pub in Brent Street was still there with its car park.

That pub was demolished some time ago and there are now flats there. I
can't remember the exact dates though.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006, Richard J. wrote:

Ralph Diehl wrote:

Yes, I abandoned that object for about the same reason.

I'm playinng with the shadow of the tate modern chimney now, it's
a bunch clearer.

The chimneys of Battersea Power Station are also very good.

Somebody said it was about 11am, it's not quite 11:30am according
to the angle I got.

I'm trying to remember the distance down to the river (how many
feet lower the river level is from the base of chimney), it's been
nearly a year since I was last there. (I live about 6K miles away
from it)

The river level varies by up to 7 metres depending on the state of
the tide, so that may not be a good shadow to choose.

Ah, but if we can deduce the height of the tide from a feature on
the Thames, we can correct for that. And we'd have a double-check
on the date and time via the tide tables.

The tide tables won't hwlp much, as they only show the predictions. On
Saturday afternoon (7 Oct) the river was about 0.4 m higher than
predicted at London Bridge, and a metre higher at Richmond.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:23:46 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

John Rowland wrote:
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was
taken just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked
trees stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!

It can't be just after dawn, not everywhere anyway. Shadows in central
London (e.g. Nelson's Column) indicate that it's late morning, roughly
around 11:00. There's an event of some sort in Trafalgar Square. From
the works going on in Devonshire Road, Chiswick, I would say it was
around January or February this year. Colin says it must be a Sunday
morning. Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.

There is evidence of the aftermath of the fire at Westbourne Park
Garage (51 31 19.83 N, 0 12 2.87 W), so this dates it at some time
after 22nd January 2006.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

"Earl Purple" typed



Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:
I still went to choir at the time, so it would be before summer 2005
(possibly winter 2004-5).

When I had a look at google maps last I noticed that the Load of Hay
pub in Brent Street was still there with its car park.

That pub was demolished some time ago and there are now flats there. I
can't remember the exact dates though.

I think it's about 4 years since that came down.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 23:08:11 +0100, Helen Deborah Vecht
wrote:

"Earl Purple" typed



Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:
I still went to choir at the time, so it would be before summer 2005
(possibly winter 2004-5).

When I had a look at google maps last I noticed that the Load of Hay
pub in Brent Street was still there with its car park.

That pub was demolished some time ago and there are now flats there. I
can't remember the exact dates though.

I think it's about 4 years since that came down.


Judging from the state of the White City development
(http://tinyurl.com/qg3e4), it's very recent indeed, around six months
old I'd guess. Not much longer than that because the temporary bus
layover area is in place and in use at the south-east corner of the
site, but work looks to be only just starting on the national rail
site. The eastern end of the shopping centre looks to be at a similar
height to what it is today, but there is not much there at the western
end yet (whereas today it is at a similar height to the eastern end).

The new covered tunnel for one of the Central Line through tracks (I
forget which one it is, Westbound I think) shows up quite nicely
through the middle of the site; on the previous set of imagery, the
whole site was empty apart from the sliproad off the old motorway, and
the exhibition/tennis court sheds were still visible.

Of course different areas of London may be from different dates, just
because White City is really new, doesn't mean it is all so new.

Ah, judging from the cars parked on the Hammersmith Road directly
outside my flat, I would say it is a Sunday morning picture, it's the
only day of the week that parking is allowed there.

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Peter Frimberley wrote:

Ah, judging from the cars parked on the Hammersmith Road directly
outside my flat, I would say it is a Sunday morning picture, it's the
only day of the week that parking is allowed there.

I think we decided that was the case earlier. A look at Brick Lane market
certainly confirms it!

What sort of date range are we down to? If it's only a few weeks across,
then knowing that it was a sunday morning when the tide was flooding would
probably pin it down. Working out the exact time is going to be trickier,
although once we have the date, i think we could do it with one of the
fortuitous sundial objects.

That said, we still don't have a really good one - something really tall
and thin, whose shadow is being cast onto flat, level ground. Does anyone
have an air navigation map of London? That would list masts, which might
do the job.

tom

--
Who would you help in a fight, Peter van der Linden or Bill Gates?

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Tom Anderson wrote:

That said, we still don't have a really good one - something really
tall and thin, whose shadow is being cast onto flat, level ground.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&z=...04989&t=k&om=1

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Thomas Covenant wrote:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 01:23:46 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

John Rowland wrote:
They've replaced the photograph of London with a newer one. It was
taken just after dawn in midwinter, so there are shadows of naked
trees stretched across everything, making it nearly useless!
It can't be just after dawn, not everywhere anyway. Shadows in central
London (e.g. Nelson's Column) indicate that it's late morning, roughly
around 11:00. There's an event of some sort in Trafalgar Square. From
the works going on in Devonshire Road, Chiswick, I would say it was
around January or February this year. Colin says it must be a Sunday
morning. Between us on this NG, we ought to be able to pin it down to a
date.

There is evidence of the aftermath of the fire at Westbourne Park
Garage (51 31 19.83 N, 0 12 2.87 W), so this dates it at some time
after 22nd January 2006.

I'll delimit that with at least several weeks (if not months) before
Monday 17th July, because the roof over the western side of St Pancras
isn't finished
(51.531921,-0.126426).


--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 10 Oct 2006, Peter Frimberley wrote:

Ah, judging from the cars parked on the Hammersmith Road directly
outside my flat, I would say it is a Sunday morning picture, it's
the only day of the week that parking is allowed there.

I think we decided that was the case earlier. A look at Brick Lane
market certainly confirms it!

What sort of date range are we down to?

It's after 22 Jan 2006 (Westbourne Park bus garage fire) and before 9
Mar 2006 (when I know the Devonshire Road, Chiswick, repaving was more
advanced than on Google).

If it's only a few weeks across, then knowing that it was a sunday
morning when the tide was flooding would probably pin it down. Working
out the exact time is going to be trickier, although once we have the
date, i think we could do it with one of the fortuitous
sundial objects.

The tide is coming in, as can be seen from the water patterns at the
Barrier, but it's nowhere near high water - look at the house boats
upstream of Battersea Bridge, and the foreshore at Chiswick. So I think
we should be looking for a Sunday when high water at London Bridge is
between 12:00 and 16:00.

That narrows it down to these three dates (the time is high water at
London Bridge):

Sun 29 Jan 2006 13:39
Sun 12 Feb 2006 13:34
Sun 26 Feb 2006 12:32

That said, we still don't have a really good one - something really
tall and thin, whose shadow is being cast onto flat, level ground.
Does anyone have an air navigation map of London? That would list
masts, which might do the job.

John provided a Google Maps reference to what I assume is the new
control tower at Heathrow. (For a photo, see
http://www.dormanlongtechnology.com/...hrow_CT_03.jpg )

The Google Earth measuring tool gives a shadow length of 283 m. The
tower is 87.5 m tall. Anyone got a protractor to measure the direction
of the shadow?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

http://maps.google.co.uk/
 

"Richard J." wrote in message
.uk...
....
The tide is coming in, as can be seen from the water patterns at the
Barrier, but it's nowhere near high water - look at the house boats
upstream of Battersea Bridge, and the foreshore at Chiswick. So I think
we should be looking for a Sunday when high water at London Bridge is
between 12:00 and 16:00.

That narrows it down to these three dates (the time is high water at
London Bridge):

Sun 29 Jan 2006 13:39
Sun 12 Feb 2006 13:34
Sun 26 Feb 2006 12:32

And if we're looking for the sunshine, Jan 29 seems the most likely
according to http://www.weatheronline.co.uk

Jan 29 had 8 hours of sunshine at LHR, Feb 12 had none, & Feb 26 only a
couple of hours.
--
David Biddulph