The Meteosat series of geostationary weather satellites are owned and operated by the European EUMETSAT organisation.

At it's control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, EUMETSAT controls three operational satellites, Meteosat-5, Meteosat-6, and Meteosat-7.

Additional facilities include a Primary Ground Station in Fucino, Italy, and data up-link stations in Bracknell, Toulouse and Rome.

The satellites give coverage from a 36000km geostationary orbit above the equator.

This means that each satellite 'stands over' the same point on the Earth's surface because it is orbiting the Globe at the same rate at which the Earth rotates on it's axis.

Images of the Earth and it's atmosphere are downloaded from the satellites to the ground station in Darmstadt every half hour at three different wavelengths - Infrared, Visible, and Water Vapour).

The images are then processed from their raw state into corrected monochrome 800 by 800 pixel sections.

Above: Meteosat-7 satellite

A dissemination schedule is published by EUMETSAT giving the times that each picture is transmitted and on what channel.

EUMETSAT is funded by 18 European states: