Beautiful Aurora Show - August 27 - 28

 

We had a very nice Aurora show last night.  It actually lasted all night.

Here is a brief highlight snippet....

For those interested in seeing the whole show, here is an all night time lapse.

New Camera Installed

I just finished the installation and code modification for the new cam.  It is a live streaming, pan/tilt/zoom IP cam.  This opens up lots of different opportunities.  I have set it up to pan and stop for 20 seconds at each position that the old cams were.  To start the live stream, click on the "Play" button in the middle of the image.  You can stream full screen by clicking on the icon in the lower right hand corner.  It needs to buffer for a few seconds before it provides a solid 1080 high definition video.  You can move the slider at the bottom of the image to go back in time.  Click on "Live" and it brings you back to the current time.  So far I am pleased with the quality and features of this new cam.  I hope you like it.

Some Changes Coming To SkunkBayWeather

I have been using software and cameras that were developed around 2010 to put the three images at the top of my site.  I also use those images for a variety of time lapses and single images to share on social media.  The cameras have been very durable and have reasonable “internet quality”.  The software is developed specifically for these Olympus cameras.  I have been buying these cams on Ebay at a reasonable price.  They are all used.  They can last up to 3-4 million shutter cycles.  They take 3,500 images per day for each cam.  Obviously, I love this package.  I have not been able to find anything that is close to this functionality.  For reference a standard DSLR camera only lasts about 100,000 to 300,000 shutter cycles.

Now for the bad news.   In order for these cameras to work with my software they require a firmware upgrade from the default version.  I just had 2 cams start to fail and ordered a couple more.  When I tried to upgrade the firmware, I found that Olympus has permanently retired this utility.  I can no longer upgrade the firmware.  This makes the cams unusable.  In other words, the 3 cams at the top of my site will no longer be available in the very near future.  Cam 3 is dead, Cam 2 is intermittent and Cam 1 is still functioning.  This is a very sad day for me.

The Canon night cam will still continue to function as usual for the foreseeable future.  It is not affected by this.

I am working on a “Live Streaming” solution as a replacement.  I hope to have this operating soon.

I do want to give a HUGE shout out to Michael McCormack who developed this software years ago (IPTimeLapse.com).  He continues to develop and support software for IP Cams and the Canon package.