On July 16, 1982 and March 1, 1984, NASA launched a new series of Landsat satellites, namely Landsats 4 and 5, into an orbital altitude of 705 km (438 miles). In addition to a 4-channel MSS, this second generation of Landsats carries a 7-channel scanner called the Thematic Mapper (TM) with a spatial resolution of 30 metres (120 metres for the thermal infrared band).

The two images presented here are the same Landsat TM image acquired on December 10 and 19, 1988. Each of these images is formed by joining (mosaicking) portions of separate scenes acquired by the satellite on adjacent orbits at an interval of 9 days, because a single scene acquired on one orbit does not cover the entire territory of Hong Kong. These two figures show the striking differences in colour that can be created by using various band combinations to highlight particular features.