Signing up to Sentinel

I’ve found the signup for this service atrociously bad:

an email to info@sentinel-hub.com referred me to this forum

They apparently don’t acknowledge this line on their own Commercial PDF: “ For you to try commercial data out, we have ingested some data in advance for you to work with. To work with the test examples, you need quota 0 set up on your account. If you’d like to try it out, let us know, to set it up for you.”

So I signed up for a “Basic” account. Then signed up for a commercial account with Planet. After it rejected my credit card a number of times I was told to use PayPal. Did so and then saw my credit card had also been run (having told me it was rejected) five times in addition to once on my PayPal account.

Now I’m having trouble with Planet in EO browser not just showing the polygon I’ve highlighted but a massive swath.

Frustrating

Hi Fred,

I apologise if you found our onboarding process bad. We appreciate your feedback and are working to improve it.

To address your questions:

  • to try out the the process of searching and ordering the data, without first paying the quota, one can follow the examples in the documentation;
  • according to the evidence from our credit card processor, none of the credit card payments was successful and you were charged only once; if you believe otherwise, please send us the transaction proofs and we will check with the credit card processor and, if it proves it has indeed happened, refund your excessive payments
  • the search in EO Browser shows all the available scenes intersecting your area and time of interest - these information are useful in case area is only partly covering your AOI; once you order the data, you will only see the polygon you have highlighted

Best,
Grega

Grega

Thanks for these comments.

On your first point the PDF very clearly states you have ingested real data to try in EO browser. The examples are static. See the quote in my comment from page 3 of your pdf which invites us to ask to “set it up for you”.

Your dashboard shows five successful hits to my credit card along with the one to set up the basic subscription. I will check with my credit card company. Get a better credit card processor. Pain in the ass.

On the search in EO browser vs. AOI your PDF says this on page 5: “ Note that data products will be clipped to your AOI.” YOur explanation above would be much more clear.

I’ve now received the email about onboarding with Planet. I see the key but don’t know where or when to enter it. Is it needed for EOBrowser? Doesn’t seem so as that seems ready to accept my order.j

In the Dashboard billing history you will clearly see the difference between five orders, that are in status “PLACED” and one in “PAID”. The ones in “PLACED” have not been executed, so no worries.

You will have to enter the Planet API key before making an order for PlanetScope data.

Best,
Grega

Thanks.

The Planet onboarding email says you have created Collection Id’s but when I go to create an order in EOBrowser I get, “ Creating order

Are you sure you want to create an order without a Collection ID?

When you confirm your order a new collection will be created automatically.”

You should have an ability to select the collection. If you don’t see one, please send a screenshot of how your UI looks like (do make sure to avoid showing your API key).

Thanks. Second time into creating an order it now shows a collection ID. Didn’t before.

Also checked my credit card company and it only ran my card for the “Basic” subscription. Still don’t understand your reliance on a processor that accepts one payment and then rejects the next. Using PayPal is not convenient for me.

Perfect, happy to hear that it works for you now.

Sorry for my continued problems. Have an order running under EOBrowser but never saw the chance to convert this to a subscription which I gather gives me all the historical data and updates for a year. Is there a way to switch this on a running order?

Subscriptions are indeed the best option as you can get both the archive as well as ensure the data are updated in the future.

You cannot “switch”, but you can simply create a new subscription and select the same collection. No need to wait for order to complete.

From the pricing page is Planet the only sat available to me living in the usa? I need higher resolution.

Planet SkySat has resolution of 0.5 m and is available as well.
Make sure to check if there are data available in your region

OK I’ve bought a SkySat package and my AOI is clearly not covered despite the fact the details state there is 100% coverage. Even on the low res preview some prominent features show my AOI is just off the frame. Also don’t have images after the dates I care about.

Can I cancel this unused SkySat package and get a refund?

Hi @Fred,
sorry to hear that - I was afraid of this option, which is why I explicitly suggested to check for available data before purchasing the quota.
Have you extended the temporal coverage, to see if there is some older data available?

We can unfortunately not provide a refund. We can, however, convert this quota to the PlanetScope if this would be more useful for you.

Best,
Grega

The low res preview under SkySat is nearly useless looking for a .5km^2 industrial site in a 25km image. Thus I was relying on the “coverage” at 100% in the details. I think you documentation needs a better call out on how inaccurate the “coverage” percentage is. Only by blowing the preview way up and carefully comparing bends in a road, bends in a river, and location of a nearby lake was I able to tell my AOI was not in the delivered 25km^2 image.

The coverage is an intersection between satellite scene’s geometry and your AOI. I imagine that there might be border cases that with AOI being on the border of the scene and scene’s geometry being slightly inaccurate the result would be as described.

Cna you post your AOI geometry here, so that we take a look? You can click the “copy” icon next to AOI drawing tools.

Here’s the AOI: {“type”:“Polygon”,“coordinates”:[[[152.664857,-25.501468],[152.664857,-25.496413],[152.675285,-25.496413],[152.675285,-25.501468],[152.664857,-25.501468]]]}

I believe there are two scenes fully covering the area:
2022-06-25 23:33:18 UTC
2022-05-27 21:26:40 UTC

Best,
Grega

I will check those. Since I want to monitor construction progress after Aug 2022 these won’t help. Have contracted with a drone operator to get aerial photography. Will hang onto this SkySat quota and use it if I ever find it over anything of interest here in the USA or Ukraine.

I’ve processed an order on Planet Scope. Is there a tutorial on downloading my image from AWS? Can’t I see it in EO Browser?

Thanks