[Proj] Hough Ellipse

Irwin Scollar al001 at uni-koeln.de
Sat May 10 10:29:30 EST 2014


I am working on a program for geometric 
correction of the Corona KH4, 4A and 4B satellite 
imagery which was declassified in 1995 and is now 
available from the web site of the USGS & EROS data center.

https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/declass_1

The panoramic image strips cover vast areas of 
roughly 3000 sq. km at 2 to 4 meters per pixel, 
depending on the satellite height.  USGS supplies 
a metadata file with the corner and center points 
of each image given in latitude and longitudes.

In

Image Coverage Models for Declassified Corona, 
Argon and Lanyard Satellite Photography, A 
Techical Expanation by J. Michael Sélander, in:

CORONA: Between the Sun & the Earth: The First 
NRO Reconnaissance Eye in Space. Robert McDonald, 
ed. Bethesda, Md.: ASPRS, 1997.

on page 181, it is stated that the coordinate 
database uses the Hough Ellipsoid (1960).  :

Parameters are given for this ellipsoid in the table:

http://geoengine.nga.mil/geospatial/SW_TOOLS/NIMAMUSE/webinter/geotrans2/help/elliptab.htm

Although called Hough in honor of F. Hough,  it 
appears to have been the work of that remarkable 
lady Dr. Irene Fischer who lived to be 102 and 
see her work incorporated into WGS84.  See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Fischer

Fischer, Irene. 1959. "A Tentative World Datum 
from Geoidal Heights Based on the Hough Ellipsoid 
and the Columbus Geoid". Journal of Geophysical Research. 64 (1): 73-84

Can anyone offer some ideas about the amount of 
error which would be introduced by mixing Hough 
lat/lons and WGS84 lat/lons obtained from Google 
Maps/ Google Earth when georeferencing the Corona 
imagery for further processing in GIS 
programs?  Or are Bursa-Wulff or Helmert datum 
transformation  parameters available somewhere?

Irwin Scollar



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