Press Release

Real-time Chinese Fengyun-2B imagery added on the Observatory's Internet Home Page (28 January 2003)

Starting from today (28 January 2003), members of the public will be able to view real-time satellite images from the Chinese Fengyun-2B (FY-2B) on the Hong Kong Observatory's website.

FY-2B is a geostationary meteorological satellite operated by the China Meteorological Administration. Like the Japanese Geostationary Meteorological Satellite-5 (GMS-5), FY-2B takes one to two cloud pictures of the globe every hour. However, they differ from each other in the time of capture of the images. FY-2B mostly takes pictures in the first half of an hour while GMS-5 mostly takes pictures in the second half of an hour. As such, the pictures from FY-2B and GMS-5 complement each other so that cloud pictures are available more frequently.

On the other hand, FY-2B is located above the Equator at 105oE, while GMS-5 is at 140 oE, thus enabling FY-2B to capture better cloud pictures to our west such as those over western Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Please check out the real-time FY-2B images at:
http://www.weather.gov.hk/wxinfo/intersat/fy2b/satpic_s.shtml

Apart from provision of real-time imagery, the Observatory also keeps an updated collection of interesting satellite imagery at the Satellite Image Gallery. You are welcome to visit the gallery at:
http://www.weather.gov.hk/wxinfo/intersat/satellite_gallery/index_e.htm