I think, the suggestion to use irregular pool shapes with non-blue painting (mentioned somewhere else) would fare better, but only slightly.
Radar satellite imagery like the one coming from Sentinel can see surface water (like seen in all the orbit shots of the flooding areas), so could be used as an even better source of information to find even partially obscured or "misshaped" pools.
Plus, with the tarps you can't use the pool anymore. After all, it's not like you can see the satellites passing overhead
> Plus, with the tarps you can't use the pool anymore. After all, it's not like you can see the satellites passing overhead
Legend has it that rogue states/combatants would track US satellites using software and freely available data, and when they know one is going to fly overhead, they'd cover whatever they don't want photographed.
From rogue states to rogue swimmers...
"Papa, can I swim?", "In 13 minutes ma princesse, then we'll be safe."
>After all, it's not like you can see the satellites passing overhead
The orbit of nearly every satellite is tracked and known. Even US spy satellites are tracked[1]. Planes can do better, but unless you charter your own plane chances are you'll get photos from a weekday, which isn't exactly prime time for pool use. You can work around that by chartering your own plane, but that'll heavily eat into potential returns.
This is an area where you don't need perfection to get most of the benefits. The number of people who are going to have military-level opsec religiously covering the pool except when no satellites are overhead is rather small — imagine having friends over and shouting “everyone out of the pool, we can go back in 47 minutes!”.
They report €10M from over 20,000 pools so you're talking an average of €500 — if you can afford to have a pool at all, are you really going to declare to your neighbors, friends, and family that you're willing to give up so much benefit from having it just to save that small a sum? Even if the tax officials don't have an anonymous tip line, that seems like a good way to cement your reputation as a bitter cheapskate.
Radar satellite imagery like the one coming from Sentinel can see surface water (like seen in all the orbit shots of the flooding areas), so could be used as an even better source of information to find even partially obscured or "misshaped" pools.
Plus, with the tarps you can't use the pool anymore. After all, it's not like you can see the satellites passing overhead