KH-4B CORONA Satellite Panchromatic Image for a Partial Area Extending across the Syrian and Turkish Border in the Al-Jazīrah Region of Syria

This is a satellite image data product made available from the 1995 declassification of intelligence imagery acquired by the first generation of United States photo-reconnaissance satellites, including the systems code-named CORONA, ARGON and LANYARD. More than 860,000 images of the Earth's surface, collected between 1960 and 1972 have been declassified. The images were used to produce maps and charts for the Department of Defense and other Federal Government mapping programs.

Nearly all of the imagery from these systems was collected using black and white film. There is a very limited amount of infrared film and high definition colour aerial film that was tested as part of the KH-4B missions and yielded poor spatial resolution performance. The original film is being preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and is stored at the National Archives at College Park, MD.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) originally delivered these images as negatives and prints to customers, but now USGS offers them as scanned images in *.tiff file formats. The images are not geo-referenced and require a Geographical Information System (GIS) or image processing package to achieve this.

This CORONA image dataset was captured as part of the KH-4B mission which photographed the earth's surface from September 1967 to May 1972. The ground resolution for these images is six feet (1.8 metres). 

This image is identified as DS1107-2154DA071, which is coded to provide the following information:

DS = Dataset Name (2 characters)
MMMM = Revolution (4 characters)
C = Camera Type (1 character)
FFF = Frame number (3 characters)

This image file is named rectify1107_2154da_71d_c1.tif.

This is one of eight image files cropped and extracted from the original file. This was done to improve spatial accuracy, during geo-referencing of each image, and reduce file size. The original image's coverage spans an area of about 275 kilometres in length and 21 kilometres in width. The photo extends across an area, which follows along the Syrian/Turkish border and extends east into the Sirnak Province of Turkey. The image starts just east of the Ras al Ayn settlement in Syria and extends east towards the settlement of Beytussebap, Turkey. Beytussebap is about 85km east of the River Tigris. Neither Ras al Ayn or Beytussebap can be seen on the image, but both are within 10km to the west and east respectively.

This segment of the CORONA image extends over parts of the Cudi Mountains (east) in the Sirnak Province of Turkey to the area around the city of Cizre on the River Tigris (west).

As this image was captured during the summer month of August in 1969, there is very little cloud cover present; ground visibility is close to 100 percent.

This image has been primarily used as part of research to locate and map archaeological sites (Tells) in this part of the Jazira region of Syria. The image also provides an important snapshot of the northern Jazira landscape in 1969. Landscape features and settlements in the region can also be mapped and compared with those from images captured recently to track and compare changes to land-use and settlement patterns in the region.

Organization: University of Edinburgh