The rugged Southern Alps extend some 650 kilometers along the western side of New Zealand's South Island. The mountains are often obscured by clouds, which is probably why the Maoris called New Zealand "Aotearoa", the long white cloud. The higher peaks are snow-covered all year round. Westerly winds bring clouds that drop over 500 centimeters of rain annually on luxuriant rain forest along the west coast. The drier eastern seaboard is home to the majority of the island's population. This pair of MISR images is from April 13, 2000 (Terra orbit 1712). The upper image is a natural color view from the instrument's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera. It is presented at a resolution of 550 meters per pixel. The lower image is a stereo anaglyph generated from the instrument's 46-degree and 26-degree forward-viewing cameras, and is presented at 275-meter per pixel resolution to show the portion of the image containing the Southern Alps in greater detail. Viewing the anaglyph in 3-D requires the use of red/blue glasses with the red filter over your left eye. To facilitate stereoscopic viewing, both images have been oriented with north at the left. The tallest mountain in the Southern Alps is Mt. Cook, at an elevation of 3754 meters. Its snow-covered peak is visible to the left of center in each of these MISR images. From the high peaks, glaciers have gouged long, slender mountain lakes and coastal fiords. Immediately to the southeast of Mt. Cook (to the right in these images), the glacial pale-blue water of Lake Pukaki stands out. Further to the south in adjacent valleys you can easily see Lakes Hawea and Wanaka, between which (though not visible here) is the Haast Pass Road, the most southerly of the few links between the east and west coast road systems. Further to the south is the prominent "S" shape of Lake Wakatipu, 83 kilometers long, on the northern shore of which is Queenstown, the principal resort town of the island. Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team [0003-0701-0711-5706] by 0003
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Keywords
3d, alps, anaglyph, anaglyphs, canterbury plains, fiordland national park, geography, haast pass road, island, islands, jpl, lake hawea, lake pukaki, lake wakatipu, lake wanaka, mount cook, mt cook, nasa, new zealand, new zealands southern alps, nz, queenstown, south island, southern alps
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