The other day I thought I'd input the adress for where I grew up into Mapqest. When the map came up there was a place to click for an aerial photo of the place. I could not believe it! There was my old neighborhood!

I did some more checking and discovered that not all places had an aerial photo available and if it did it might be either black and white or color.

The place we live now had a beautiful color photo available. For now it has been saved as the wallpaper on my computer.

Go check out your place at mapquest.com

-- Lavender, Central Maryland (lavenderbluedilly@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002

Answers

You can also try terraserver at http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp

-- Mike (mhammer@ix.netcom.com), May 03, 2002.

also check out terraserver.com for aerials. also, sometimes your county government will have aerials online as well. if not online, the building and planning department should have pics on file.

-- jeff (jreyschmidt@yahoo.com), May 03, 2002.

I'm never too thrilled to think that people are flying overhead taking pictures of our little homestead. I know the government does this for various reasons but where's the privacy issue ??? I remember one time a saleman came to our door selling aieral veiw pictures of our place...he got a real earfull from my husband at the time. So...I guess Big Brother does know what you do on the back 40.

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), May 03, 2002.

I wish I'd know when they were taking pictures so I could moon them!

-- Ardie/WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.

LOL! Good one Ardie!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.

Almost every year a salesman comes to the door, with an aerial picture of our place. I asked why they took a picture every year, were they looking to see if we are growing weed out behind the barn.

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), May 03, 2002.

Lavender,

I did it.

Thanks

-- Rick7 (rick7@postmark.net), May 03, 2002.

WIERD!!!

I put in my address back home and it came up--full color!!! I had to follow the read back from the local school as there were too many trees to really see the house right off, but I found it. That is way creepy. My parents will be thrilled, I'm sure, to know that spy planes are flying overhead and taking pics of our EVERY MOVE. JK. Seriously though, there are way too many trees where we live to ever make out more than a shopping mall. If you're concerned about big brother then move to western Washington I guess. It just goes to show--you should always smile in public because you never know who is watching. LOL.

-- Erika (misserika129@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.

Many of those photos come from the govt checkingt up on farmers. They fly over at a certain height taking pics. They can then figure out the size of each field.

Off topic, but: I hear in Washington DC using cameras with radar has increased speeding tickets from 11,000 to 200,000+ in a (year? Month? Don't remember....)The ticket gets mailed to you....

With a revenue increase like _that_ you can be 100% sure that all local municipalities will be buying that equipment, and we will all be having our photos taken! There is _no_ way around that one, the money looks to good.....

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), May 03, 2002.

Check out a movie called "Enemy of the State" to see a graphic description of what kinds of surveillance technology the gov't has - and uses! There is no privacy any more. I'd like to have an aerial photo of our place though! :)

-- Christine Baillie (towanda515@yahoo.com), May 04, 2002.

actually, those photos are taken from a satellite, not from planes. Most of them from the Spin-2 used by the USGS. That's an old satellite and nowhere close to the resolution of some up there.

-- Dave (multiplierx9@hotmail.com), May 04, 2002.

I have a friend who does infrared photography for the Dept. of Agriculture. He says they can tell where you have things buried as well as where field tile and other underground objects are. He told me where my septic system was 20 years after it was put in. Scary.

-- Dave (drcomer@rr1.net), May 04, 2002.

My area must not be too popular. The photo of our area was so blurred that you could't tell much of anything.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), May 04, 2002.

We got aerial photos of our place from the county. They must use a cut-rate outfit because we could barely make out the buildings. No way you could see people.

-- Bonnie (stichart@plix.com), May 05, 2002.

Glad some of you could find your places!

Ardie! Shame on you! ;-)

-- Lavender, Central Maryland (lavenderbluedilly@hotmail.com), May 05, 2002.

Ok, I checked out terraserver.com

The photo of our place there is a 1988 satellite shot. Interesting because we can see things the way they were before we ever saw this place. There used to be trees in front of the house and across the road that are no longer there. We moved to Maryland in '93 and bought this place in '96.

-- Lavender, Central Maryland (lavenderbluedilly@hotmail.com), May 05, 2002.