S-PolKa Quad Weather Cams

Four NetCam XL 3MP cameras are available for routine use at S-PolKa, pointed in the four cardinal directions.  For camera manufacturer technical details and support, see http://www.stardottech.com

Cameras are mounted on the west- and east-pointing containers of the main S-PolKa structure. The cameras have an adjustable wide field of view (FOV), and are typically set to the maximum, nominally 90 degrees, thus providing full-sky coverage. The cameras also have an automatically adjusting iris. Due to this wide FOV, there should be common cloud elements visible in adjacent cameras, somewhere starting about half-way up the side of an image, and above that.

Image quality is good, although not as great as you might expect from an inexpensive point-and-shoot (image quality was limited by wide-angle lens effects). Image resolution is set to 1024x768 pixels, the manufacturer suggested optimum for color images. Each camera runs its own web server, and the linux operating system. Images are recorded in jpg format, with a JPEG image quality setting of 80. Image names are in the form CAMNAME_CCYYMMDDhhmmss.jpg . Images were sent to the data logging system via ftp.

Data collection during daylight hours, only.