Landsat 8 Bands and Band Combinations

Today, we will list the Landsat 8 bands as well as its most popular band combinations.

The two main sensors for Landsat 8 are the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS).

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) produces 9 ghostly groups (Band 1 to 9) at 15, 30, and 60-meter goals.

At that point, the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) comprises of 2 warm groups with a spatial goal of 100 meters.

What Are the Landsat 8 Bands?

Band Number	Description	Wavelength	Resolution
Band 1	Coastal / Aerosol	0.433 to 0.453 µm	30 meter
Band 2	Visible blue	0.450 to 0.515 µm	30 meter
Band 3	Visible green	0.525 to 0.600 µm	30 meter
Band 4	Visible red	0.630 to 0.680 µm	30 meter
Band 5	Near-infrared	0.845 to 0.885 µm	30 meter
Band 6	Short wavelength infrared	1.56 to 1.66 µm	30 meter
Band 7	Short wavelength infrared	2.10 to 2.30 µm	60 meter
Band 8	Panchromatic	0.50 to 0.68 µm	15 meter
Band 9	Cirrus	1.36 to 1.39 µm	30 meter
Band 10	Long-wavelength infrared	10.3 to 11.3 µm	100 meter
Band 11	Long-wavelength infrared	11.5 to 12.5 µm	100 meter

Operational Land Imager (OLI)

This is a similar data as in the table above yet separated by every sensor. On-board Landsat-8, OLI produces 9 spectral bands (Band 1 to 9). Landsat 8 bands from the OLI sensor are coastal, blue, green, red, NIR, SWIR-1, SWIR-2, and cirrus. These 8 bands have a ground resolution of 30 meters. At that point, the panchromatic band has a finer resolution of 15 meters.

Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS)

TIRS is the first of its sort in the Landsat program. At the end of the day, this kind of sensor didn’t exist before Landsat 8. TIRS comprises 2 thermal bands (band 10 and 11) that measures Earth’s thermal energy. Both bands from TIRS are long-wavelength infrared with 100-meter resolution.

Landsat 8 Band Combinations

Similarly, as with any picture bands, you can arrange them in such a way to extract unique and new information. This is the case by extracting spectral signatures of objects in an image.

In the case of Landsat-8, some of the popular band blends incorporate common shading, shading infrared, and different vegetation indexes.

If you want to see the Landsat-8 band blends in an intelligent webmap, at that point I recommend to you the Landsat Explorer. You should simply switch the rendering of information.

Something else, read underneath for the most widely recognized band blends and what they work in.

Natural Color (4, 3, 2)

The natural color composite uses a band mix of red (4), green (3), and blue (2). It reproduces near what our natural eye sees. While sound vegetation is green, undesirable verdure is darker. Urban highlights seem white and dim and water is dull blue or dark.

Color Infrared (5, 4, 3)

This band combination is also called the near to infrared (NIR) composite. It uses near-infrared (5), red (4) and green (3). Since chlorophyll reflects close to infrared light, this band structure is valuable for dissecting vegetation. Specifically, territories in red have better vegetation wellbeing. Dim zones are water and urban zones are white.

Short-Wave Infrared (7, 6 4)

The short-wave infrared band combination use SWIR-2 (7), SWIR-1 (6), and red (4). This composite presentation vegetation in shades of green. While darker shades of green demonstrate denser vegetation, scanty vegetation has lighter shades. Urban regions are blue and soils have different shades of darker.

Agriculture (6, 5, 2)

This band combination use SWIR-1 (6), close infrared (5), and blue (2). It’s generally utilized for crop checking as a result of the utilization of short-wave and near to infrared. Healthy vegetation appears dark green. But bare earth has a magenta hue.

Geology (7, 6, 2)

The geology band combination use SWIR-2 (7), SWIR-1 (6), and blue (2). This band combination is particularly useful for identifying geological formations, lithology features, and faults.

Bathymetric (4, 3, 1)

The bathymetric band combination (4,3,1) utilizes the red (4), green (3), and beachfront band to top into water. The waterfront band is valuable in seaside, bathymetric, and airborne investigations since it reflects blues and violets. This band blend is useful for evaluating suspended dregs in water.

Panchromatic

The panchromatic band spans are the longer scope of frequencies and can produce 15m panchromatic pictures. By pansharpening symbolism with the panchromatic band, you can hone your symbolism delivering a crisper product.

Vegetation Index

The vegetation index leverages the properties of the red (which vegetation absorbs) near-infrared bands (which vegetation strongly reflects). As the name implies, we use it to monitor vegetation health and vigor. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) always ranges from -1 to +1. Negative values are indicative of water and moisture. But high NDVI values suggest dense vegetation canopy.

Moisture Index

The moisture index estimates the amount of content. Water shows up as blue with lighter shades containing less dampness. At long last, brilliant orange and red have essentially lower moisture content.

Other Important Information

Landsat-8 was propelled on February 11, 2013, is still active. It began as the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. Presently, we know it basically as Landsat-8.

Landsat-8 gathers 550 scenes for each day. So by August 2020, it will arrive at an aggregate of 1.5 million gathered scenes. This workhorse satellite stays a staple of open source land data for the public population.

If you’re interested in learning more, NASA has a great blog post on how to interpret a satellite image.

And of course, the entire Landsat Science website is an excellent resource for keeping up-to-date with everything such as Landsat-9.