Method
How Aureum measures
Passes, freshness, and limits
What a question returns, what a board counts, and what a 10 metre picture cannot show.
What you get when you ask
Query starts with a question in plain language, about a place or an asset. The answer is a written reading, with the satellite pictures that support it.
Naming a place is not a promise of a clear picture there. Whether a usable frame exists depends on the archive and on cloud.
That is a different job from Track, the catalogue of boards in the next section. Who builds Aureum is on About.
What a Track board is
Track is a catalogue of hand-built boards. You follow the boards Aureum has already built, on named ports, tanker routes and datacentres.
The public guides include the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and the AI data center guide.
From inside the product you can send a note about what should be measured next. That note goes on Aureum's list. It is not a board.
What a 10 metre picture can show
The pictures on the public guides are Sentinel-2, an optical satellite, at 10 metres. Each picture is one pass, and the guide prints the date of that pass. Cloud blocks the ground. The credit line is Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data, plus the year of the pass.
A pixel at that scale can show a large hull, often with a wake, or the footprint of a building, as on the AI data center guide. It cannot show a name, a flag, a person, or the ground through cloud.
| What a pixel can show | What it cannot show | |
|---|---|---|
| A large hull | A bright shape on the water, often with a wake | A name, a flag, or the cargo |
| A building | The footprint: cleared ground, walls, a roof | A person, or what is inside the hall |
| Cloud | The picture stops where the cloud is | The ground through the cloud |
What a strait board counts
The headlines on the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb boards are counts of ships that broadcast AIS. The count for a day is settled the next day. Ships that are not broadcasting are missing from that count.
The public pictures on those guides are a different thing. Each one is a Sentinel-2 frame, with the date of that pass, and large ships checked by eye. Those circled ships are not the board headline.
Hull counts made from radar are not on the public boards.
How fresh a pass is
A pass is one Sentinel-2 acquisition. One picture is one moment, not a whole day. Cloud can hide the ground, so a pass and a usable picture are not the same thing.
To see when a free satellite last passed over a place, and whether the sky was clear over that spot, use the satellite image date checker. That page is about the age of free pictures, including Google Earth. It does not change how a board is counted.
The Aureum homepage is the front door to Query and Track. This page is the method.
Two meanings of clear
Clear is not one rule. The campus pictures and the app use different tests, and this page names which is which.
| The test | Where it applies | |
|---|---|---|
| Campus pictures | Hidden pixels about 0.5% of the frame. The published frame is the newest that passes, in each quarter. | The public campus pictures only. Not an update after every pass. |
| The app | Cloud at or below 40% over the area being read, after the scene mask. | A Query answer, and a datacentre reading in the app. Not the campus pictures. |
What Aureum does not do
- Not while it is happening. A strait count is settled the next day, and a picture is one pass. Aureum does not send a message when a figure moves.
- Not a board you assemble. The boards on Track are hand-built. You follow them. A note about what to measure next goes on Aureum's list, and it is not a board.
- Not a printed number. This site does not print a board number, a change in that number, or a latest figure. A homepage card that shows a count is marked illustrative. It is not a board reading.
- Not a trade. A reading describes what was seen. It is not a forecast and not a trade. Briefings and product outputs are not investment, trading, tax, or legal advice.
- Not every place you can name. Naming a place is not a promise of a clear picture there. A usable frame depends on the archive and on cloud.
The company is Aureum EO Ltd. The register entry, the office and the people are on About. The longer argument for the product is the manifesto. Questions come in through contact.
Questions
Ask Aureum
A plain-language question, and a satellite-backed answer. Free to join in beta.