Techniques for atmospheric compensation in satellite imagery that include converting an image including an array of radiance values to an array of surface reflectance values. The conversion is performed in an automated fashion by identifying one or more portions of the image for which the surface reflectance can be estimated and determining the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) by iteratively comparing the radiance value captured by the image sensor to a calculated radiance value (based on the known surface reflectance, historical values for other atmospheric parameters, and the AOD) and adjusting the AOD until the calculated radiance value is substantially the same as the captured radiance value.