File:Topography Ireland.jpg
Two visualisation methods were combined to produce this image: shading and colour coding of topographic height. The shade image was derived by computing topographic slope in the northwest-southeast direction, so that northwest slopes appear bright and southeast slopes appear dark. Colour coding is directly related to topographic height, with green at the lower elevations, rising through yellow and tan, to white at the highest elevations.
Elevation data used in this image were acquired by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched on 11 February 2000. SRTM used the same radar instrument that comprised the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) that flew twice on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994. SRTM was designed to collect 3-D measurements of the Earth's surface. To collect the 3-D data, engineers added a 60-metre (approximately 200-foot) mast, installed additional C-band and X-band antennas, and improved tracking and navigation devices. The mission was a cooperative project between NASA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) of the U.S. Department of Defense and the German and Italian space agencies. It was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, Washington, D.C.
Location: 53.5 degrees North latitude, 8 degrees West longitude
Orientation: North toward the top, Mercator projection