Selkirk Remote Sensing Cameras and Equipment

Aircraft
Type: Piper Chieftain
Working Altitudes: Maximum - 24,000 feet, minimum for photo - 1500 feet.
Crew: One pilot and one camera operator, with room for an optional third person.

Lenses

• Apo-Sironar Digital HR Lenses (60mm) for the Digital Camera
• RC30 F/4 max. aperture, 153 mm (6") focal length with USGS calibration.
• RC30 F/4 max. aperture, 303 mm (12") focal length with USGS calibration.

Click here for camera and lens calibration reports.

Camera Leveling
Cessna 206 - Manual controls for Pitch, Roll, and Azimuth.
Piper Chieftain - Automatic IMU control for pitch and roll, manual control for azimuth.

The camera mount is only connected to the airplane at 4 shock-absorbing points, to avoid shocks and vibrations from the aircraft.

Navigation and Photo Control
Piper Chieftain:
When our Chieftain became operational in December 2008, we installed the Track'air system for flight management, navigation and photo control. This system uses the same precise GPS used for Perspective Centre Recovery, allowing very accurate navigation and photo acquisition. The Track'air system also records uncorrected GPS position and time logs for each photo taken.

Cessna 206:
Proprietary software operating on a PC attends generates velocity/height signals to operate the FMC. This software in combination with 2 Novatel GPS receivers provides for precise, reliable flight-line navigation The uncorrected position and time is logged at the time of exposure. A video system is used as a backup for navigation as well as for camera mount control.

GPS for Perspective Centre Recovery
Using two Novatel receivers and the British Columbia network of Active Control Stations we are able to recover the coordinates of each perspective centre with precisions as high as 10cm RMS. The perspective center is the position from which all rays emanate - ie. the point in the air where the picture is taken. It is not simply the point on the ground which is at the centre of the photograph. Currently not available for the Digital Cameras.

Film Processing
Black and white films are processed in-house using a Kodak 11CM Versamet. The processor is reserved exclusively for film products to eliminate contamination from paper products.
Colour films are processed at either HAS Images in Dayton, Ohio.

Annotation
Film is annotated with a CAD driven plotter. This permits complex, low-cost customized annotation for each client.

Delivery Formats
Processed positive and negative roll films, contact paper prints and film diapositives, enlargements up to 12x.

Digital images are stored on CD's, DVD's or Removable Hard Drives depending on the size of the job.