Live Aurora Cam - Northumberland

[Spaced Out]

Hi all. I've set up a live stream camera so that I can monitor the sky for the Aurora Borealis. I hope this will run 24/7. I wanted to share this with a few mates so I've added it to a webpage and made it public. There is an all-sky cam on the page too. I’m in the process of setting up some motion detection software to see if I can catch any meteors on the live stream 🤔.

Just chucking it on here in case anyone is interested. 🙂

northumberland-astro.space/sky-cameras/

 

 

Edited January 30 by Spaced Out

[callisto]

Hi there,

Was driving along the harbour in Amble about 20-30 mins ago and was sure a glimpsed a meteor burning up over the north sea... anyone up this way seen it?

 

Mark 

[Spaced Out]

47 minutes ago, callisto said:

Hi there,

Was driving along the harbour in Amble about 20-30 mins ago and was sure a glimpsed a meteor burning up over the north sea... anyone up this way seen it?

 

Mark 

Sadly not 🙁

[lunator]

Very nice website.

Hopefully you can catch the aurora and meteors

Cheers

Ian

[callisto]

37 minutes ago, Spaced Out said:

Sadly not 🙁

Never mind... thought you might have caught it on the cam 🙂

[Spaced Out]

11 minutes ago, callisto said:

Never mind... thought you might have caught it on the cam 🙂

If you can give me an approx time I can look at the all sky cam images (was it around 6pm ?), the live stream is north facing tho so wouldn't pick up stuff out at sea. 

[Spaced Out]

13 minutes ago, Spaced Out said:

If you can give me an approx time I can look at the all sky cam images (was it around 6pm ?), the live stream is north facing tho so wouldn't pick up stuff out at sea. 

Ahhh.... Just looked back at the images and looks like the camera was down from 5.30 - 6.30. Been running without a hitch for weeks now then a glitch today just at that time. Typical eh !

[callisto]

Hi again,

Yeah it was around 6ish? About north east facing,

You've got me into thinking that I might set one up myself 🤔 

Good luck 🤞

[PeterC65]

Thanks for setting up these cameras. It's useful to see the sky from a different vantage point.

Would you mind publishing where the camera is located and in which direction it is pointing as I'd quite like to identify the view in Stellarium?

I assume that the all sky camera updates the image every minute rather than showing it real time like the Aurora camera. Is there a reason for that?

 

[Spaced Out]

On 31/01/2024 at 09:32, PeterC65 said:

Would you mind publishing where the camera is located and in which direction it is pointing as I'd quite like to identify the view in Stellarium?

I assume that the all sky camera updates the image every minute rather than showing it real time like the Aurora camera. Is there a reason for that?

 

Hi, the location is Embleton Northumberland. The live stream camera is pointing north.

The live stream camera is a video camera but the all-sky camera is a stills camera and can't do video.

 

[Spaced Out]

On 31/01/2024 at 09:11, callisto said:

Hi again,

Yeah it was around 6ish? About north east facing,

You've got me into thinking that I might set one up myself 🤔 

Good luck 🤞

It's easy enough to do and the live stream camera is a relatively cheap security camera designed for low light conditions.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Weatherproof-Detection-Starlight-C325WB/dp/B0CB1TGPJG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=366SQ6A882KC5&keywords=tapo%2Bc325wb&qid=1706785049&sprefix=tapo%2Bc325wb%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-3&th=1

I saw this video about using it to catch real time auroras and it convinced me to give it a go !  

 

 

[Spaced Out]

On 30/01/2024 at 18:41, lunator said:

Very nice website.

Hopefully you can catch the aurora and meteors

Cheers

Ian

Thanks !

Second night using the motion detection software last night and it works ! 🙂

 

[Alan White]

What a super website, does you and your society proud.
 

[Leo S]

On 30/01/2024 at 17:24, Spaced Out said:

 I’m in the process of setting up some motion detection software to see if I can catch any meteors on the live stream 🤔.

 

Thanks for the live feed. Bookmarked

If you want actual software designed for meteors, have a look here, and here. It includes software that analyzes meteors and can work out orbits if footage from another camera is available.

Edit to add: No matter. I see you got your software to work. I'm having trouble viewing the footage, but while it was downloading I could see little bits - it looks like you caught an aircraft, but I could be wrong.

Edited February 1 by Leo S

[Spaced Out]

23 hours ago, Leo S said:

 

Thanks for the live feed. Bookmarked

If you want actual software designed for meteors, have a look here, and here. It includes software that analyzes meteors and can work out orbits if footage from another camera is available.

Edit to add: No matter. I see you got your software to work. I'm having trouble viewing the footage, but while it was downloading I could see little bits - it looks like you caught an aircraft, but I could be wrong.

Thanks, I've got the software working OK, just trying to work out how to schedule it to turn off in the daytime !

I think it's meteor, seen a few aircraft on here, they are much slower and they strobe.

[callisto]

1 hour ago, Spaced Out said:

Thanks, I've got the software working OK, just trying to work out how to schedule it to turn off in the daytime !

I think it's meteor, seen a few aircraft on here, they are much slower and they strobe.

Yeah, it's deffo a meteor you can see the shimmering trail 

[Leo S]

1 hour ago, Spaced Out said:

Thanks, I've got the software working OK, just trying to work out how to schedule it to turn off in the daytime !

I think it's meteor, seen a few aircraft on here, they are much slower and they strobe.

Any chance you could upload the clip elsewhere (vimeo, youtube, for example)?

Some use timers along the lines of these to turn off the camera.

 

[SteveNickolls]

Thanks so much for making your site available. Have it bookmarked now. 👍

Cheers,

Steve

[mareman48]

On 30/01/2024 at 17:24, Spaced Out said:

Hi all. I've set up a live stream camera so that I can monitor the sky for the Aurora Borealis. I hope this will run 24/7. I wanted to share this with a few mates so I've added it to a webpage and made it public. There is an all-sky cam on the page too. I’m in the process of setting up some motion detection software to see if I can catch any meteors on the live stream 🤔.

Just chucking it on here in case anyone is interested. 🙂

northumberland-astro.space/sky-cameras/

 

 

Many thanks for this 👍

[Spaced Out]

2 hours ago, Leo S said:

Any chance you could upload the clip elsewhere (vimeo, youtube, for example)?

Some use timers along the lines of these to turn off the camera.

 

I can email it you if you like ? Drop me a DM with your email. 👍

Thanks, I could easily schedule the camera to turn on and off with its own software but I need to leave it on 24/7 as it's a live stream. Its the motion detection software I need to turn on and off, this is possible by adding in some code, just working out how to do it atm but I am not a programmer ! Fairly confident I'll get it sorted tho. 🤞 

[Leo S]

Thanks for the offer, but not to worry - tried the clip in another browser and it worked much better. I agree, it does look like a meteor. Good catch 👍

[Spaced Out]

20 hours ago, Leo S said:

Thanks for the offer, but not to worry - tried the clip in another browser and it worked much better. I agree, it does look like a meteor. Good catch 👍

The motion detection software was triggered again this evening, I presume this is a meteor blazing behind the clouds 🤔.

[JeremyS]

Cracking live vid 👍🏻

[Paul M]

Thats a stunning foreground scene to frame the Aurora Cam, well actually it's even better in the All Sky Cam!

Nice project!

[Spaced Out]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Cracking live vid 👍🏻

Thanks ! It's just an IP security camera but one that performs fairly well in low light.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tapo-Weatherproof-Detection-Starlight-C325WB/dp/B0CB1TGPJG?th=1

I was amazed to see the Milky Way on it the other night, incredible for a 20 frames per second video camera, ok, it was very subtle but it was there ! Here's a timelapse, if you squint and use your imagination you can just about see it....