BAND COMBINATIONS FOR LANDSAT 8

by kevin_butler on July 24, 2013

Landsat 8 has been online for a couple of months now, and the images look
incredible. While all of the bands from previous Landsat missions are still
incorporated, there are a couple of new ones, such as the coastal blue band
water penetration/aerosol detection and the cirrus cloud band for cloud
masking and other applications. Heres a rundown of some common band
combinations applied to Landsat 8, displayed as a Red, Green, Blue (RGB):

Applications

RGB

Natural Color

432

False Color (urban)

764

Color Infrared (vegetation)

543

Agriculture

652

Atmospheric Penetration

765

Healthy Vegetation

562

Land/Water

564

Natural With Atmospheric Removal

753

Shortwave Infrared

754

Vegetation Analysis

654

Heres how the new bands from Landsat 8 line up with Landsat 7:

Landsat 7
Band
Name

Bandwidt
h (m)

Landsat 8
Resoluti
on (m)

Band
Name

Bandwidt
h (m)

Resolut
ion (m)

Band 1
Coastal

0.430.45

30

Band 1
Blue

0.45 0.52

30

Band 2 Blue

0.450.51

30

Band 2
Green

0.52 0.60

30

Band 3
Green

0.530.59

30

Band 3
Red

0.63 0.69

30

Band 4 Red

0.640.67

30

Band 4
NIR

0.77 0.90

30

Band 5 NIR

0.850.88

30

Band 5
SWIR 1

1.55 1.75

30

Band 6
SWIR 1

1.571.65

30

Band 7
SWIR 2

2.09 2.35

30

Band 7
SWIR 2

2.112.29

30

Band 8
Pan

0.52 0.90

15

Band 8 Pan

0.500.68

15

Band 9
Cirrus

1.361.38

30

Band 10
TIRS 1

10.6
11.19

100

Band 11
TIRS 2

11.5
12.51

100

Band 6
TIR

10.40
12.50

30/60

For the most part, the bands line up with what were used to, with some minor
tweaking of the spectral ranges. The thermal infrared band from Landsat 7 is
now split into two bands for Landsat 8. Whereas before you had one thermal
band that was acquired at 60 m resolution (and resampled to 30 m) now you
have increased spectral resolution at the cost of spatial resolution. It wouldnt be
remote sensing without tradeoffs, right?
This entry was posted in Imagery, Uncategorized and tagged band
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