Are you talking about the Landsat images? I posted a few clippings of these maps in the photo gallery of my site ( oasisphoto.com ), are these the ones you’re talking about?

Is they are the same then you should know that a lot of the colors presented in these maps are not real. They represent different things, like mineral content for example. For example look at the image of Ghard Abu Mahareek. I’ve been there and I’ve never seen any of the colors that appear in the sat images other that different shades of yellow and brown.

Generally, sat images are not the best to navigate with. They are mainly used as an aid and exploration tool when traveling off road. Even then you must navigate with regular maps and use sat images to look for interesting features to explore. For example they helped me find a pass in the western desert near Fayoum that I didn’t know exist and saved me about 50 km or so. Andras was telling me that he uses them to identify potential rock art sites in valleys that are not drawn on regular maps.

You should never even attempt to navigate with them if you’re traveling on paved roads since as you said they’re not visible and nothing is marked. For this type of navigation, use regular street maps. You can put all types of different maps on your hard disk and use QV to switch between them. That’s what I do personally when planning trips.

------------------
A.B.

OasisPhoto.com – Images from the Magical Sahara.
ShortWheelbase.com – Jeep preparations.

__________________
A.B.
OasisPhoto.com – Images from the Magical Sahara.