This was taken very early in the day, as witnessed by the sharp northwestern shadows and disorganization in the crowd. I'd guess it was around 7am based on when the sun came up today here.
I'm sure they would have wanted to have the satellite orbit at the appropriate time, but changing the orbit to coincide with a specific time isn't exactly cheap or easy.
While you may be hoping that the event appeared larger, these satellite photos were actually taken at about 1100-1130am, which would be pretty close to the peak attendance at the Inauguration.
Using this map that utilizes the Washington Monument as a sundial, we can estimate the time based on the shadow provided by the monument:
Whenever I see images like this I always get a little grossed out when I think that the splotches are people packed together. Dunno what that says about me.
It's different when I think about the planet as a whole, or even when I am in a crowd or am viewing a crowd on ground level. But the vantage point the pictures in the post give us gives me an uneasy feeling.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 39.2 ms ] threadWhether it was done on purpose to try to diminish the magnitude of the event, or a stupid mistake from the publisher.
It was packed to the roof with more than a million souls.
Using this map that utilizes the Washington Monument as a sundial, we can estimate the time based on the shadow provided by the monument:
http://sundials.org/links/local/images/washmon.htm
It's more along the lines of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M