Off-Nadir Delta
Quick answer — what Off-Nadir Delta is

Off-Nadir Delta is a real-time event and geospatial intelligence platform that decides what is worth observing. Disasters, conflict, environmental change, and infrastructure failures unfold worldwide every day, but the signals are scattered across news, open data, and satellite imagery — and reading them takes expertise and time. Off-Nadir Delta combines an AI analyst, maps, satellite data, and open sources to explore, visualize, and prioritize geographic events, and to answer the questions that precede any imagery spend: can a satellite settle this, is free Sentinel-class data enough or does it need commercial tasking, and when can the place next be imaged. Factual claims link to their sources, judgments are labelled as judgments rather than facts, and each brief reports its own citation coverage — naming any claim that lacks a source — instead of producing an assessment anyway. There are three ways to look, distinguished by scope: Delta Watchfloor (everywhere, today — today's prioritized picture of global risk, so you know where to look now), Delta Map (one place, right now — verify an event from space with Sentinel-1 C-band SAR, NISAR L-band SAR, Sentinel-2 optical, VIIRS nighttime lights, and NASA FIRMS active fires, no GIS software required), and Delta Monitor (one place, over time — fix an area, pick what to count such as ships alongside a berth, burned area or water extent, and every new Sentinel-1 or Sentinel-2 acquisition over it is measured automatically, with unusual readings flagged against the history). And two ways to be told: Delta Agent (an AI analyst that explains what happened and why it matters, and recommends which satellite sensor and area to image next) and Delta Reports (a written daily assessment with Key Judgments, calibrated confidence, and an outlook). Built for OSINT, geopolitical-risk, and satellite-intelligence analysts, and for developers integrating live signals and briefs through the API and MCP. Also applicable to emergency management, media, enterprise-risk, and research workflows. No intelligence background required. Free tier available. Created by Kazushi Motomura (Off-Nadir Lab), an independent personal project.

Why Off-Nadir Delta?

No Install
100% Browser-Based
Global
Worldwide Coverage
Free
To Get Started
Sourced
Facts Cited, Gaps Named
Type: Intelligence PlatformCreator: Off-Nadir LabData: Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, NISAR, VIIRS, FIRMSLicense: Freemium

Supported Satellite Data

Sentinel-1 (SAR)

Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery that works day and night, through clouds and smoke. Ideal for flood mapping, disaster response, and all-weather monitoring.

  • • Ground Range Detected (GRD)
  • • Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC)
  • • Resolution: ~10-20 meters
  • • Revisit: 6 days

Sentinel-2 (Optical)

Multispectral optical imagery with 13 spectral bands. Perfect for vegetation analysis, land cover mapping, and environmental monitoring.

  • • Level-2A (atmospherically corrected)
  • • Resolution: 10 meters (visible/NIR)
  • • Revisit: 5 days
  • • 13 spectral bands

VIIRS Nighttime Lights (NASA Black Marble)

Day-Night Band (DNB) imagery showing nighttime artificial lights from space. Ideal for urban analysis, economic activity monitoring, and disaster impact assessment.

  • • VNP46A2 Gap-Filled BRDF-Corrected NTL
  • • Resolution: ~500 meters
  • • Daily composite products
  • • Cloud-free nighttime observations

NASA FIRMS Active Fire

Near real-time active fire hotspot data from NASA FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System).

  • • VIIRS (S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21): 375m resolution
  • • MODIS (Terra, Aqua): 1km resolution
  • • Updated daily via NASA GIBS WMS

Technology Stack

OpenLayers

Map Visualization

STAC

Data Discovery

COG

Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF

Next.js

Web Framework

Built with modern geospatial standards: SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) for data discovery and Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) for efficient streaming of satellite imagery.

Data Sources

Off-Nadir Delta provides access to satellite data from trusted, authoritative sources:

Copernicus Programme (ESA)

European Space Agency's Earth observation programme providing free and open Sentinel satellite data.

AWS Earth Search

Amazon Web Services hosting of Sentinel-2 data for fast, reliable access.

Microsoft Planetary Computer

Sentinel-1 RTC data processed and hosted by Microsoft for radiometrically corrected SAR imagery.

NASA GIBS / FIRMS

NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) and Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) for active fire hotspot and nighttime lights data.

Open Data Policy

All Sentinel data is freely available under the Copernicus open data policy. NASA data (VIIRS, FIRMS) is provided under NASA's open data policy for non-commercial and commercial use.

Data Accuracy & Disclaimer

Off-Nadir Delta provides access to publicly available satellite imagery on a best-effort basis. The platform streams data directly from authoritative sources (ESA Copernicus, NASA, AWS, Microsoft Planetary Computer) and does not modify or reprocess the original data.

Limitations to be aware of:

  • Satellite imagery may contain cloud cover, atmospheric artifacts, or sensor noise that can affect visual interpretation.
  • Data availability depends on upstream providers; coverage gaps or delays may occur without notice.
  • Active fire data (NASA FIRMS) has a latency of approximately 3 hours (VIIRS) to 1-2 days (MODIS) and should not be used as the sole source for emergency decisions.
  • NDVI and other derived indices are computed from source bands and may differ from values produced by specialized processing pipelines.
  • This platform is independently developed and is not affiliated with ESA, NASA, or any data provider.

For critical applications (disaster response, legal evidence, regulatory compliance), always verify satellite observations with authoritative ground-truth sources. See our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for full details.