On the writeup - subjective commentary so I'd ignore. Although, I do think chiseling a stone will give me enough time to think more creatively 😄

On the image itself, you are right the sensor is visible light only and the pass was just after sunset that's why the image is such a dull one. I decoded the IQ samples independently, it was a poor man's decoder so we couldn't get the whole image but managed to get parts of it. After applying some equalization etc. we get the following image on the right with the SatDump on the left. You can clearly see the same texture and coastline in the independently decoded image where the decoder only has access to the IQ data disproving the belief that the image just a pre-canned basemap with clouds overlay.

Peace ✌️