Helicopter & activity on Mott Dock + Winter Study flights

[Ingo]

One of the researchers is up on the Greenstone.

Another possibility is communications equipment for the Ojibway tower, but just speculating.

[treeplanter]

That could be. In past years, the winter research team is gone by now. All the activity at Mott over the past several days suggest park infrastructure improvements are going on. Work on the Ojibway tower could be one of these projects.

[sparky49931]

Helicopter was moving food storage boxes out to campgrounds. The boxes were staged at several places around park this Fall and then slung to the nearby campgrounds by helicopter. Boxes are heavy, large and really difficult to move any distance by hand.. Helicopter got them close.. crews will carry them to their final spots and get them setup for use.

Loads going up to the Greenstone were 1700 pounds of replacement batteries for the communications equipment including webcams at the lookout. The batteries are about 140lbs each so pretty tough to carry in.... The old battery system coming out can be taken apart into 42 modules that are only around 70lbs each so they can be carried out on pack frames which will happen as we're able over the course of this next Summer.

[RedLeg]

Packing a 70# ruck is bad enough, ugh.

[Ingo]

Helicopter was moving food storage boxes out to campgrounds. The boxes were staged at several places around park this Fall and then slung to the nearby campgrounds by helicopter. Boxes are heavy, large and really difficult to move any distance by hand.. Helicopter got them close.. crews will carry them to their final spots and get them setup for use.

Loads going up to the Greenstone were 1700 pounds of replacement batteries for the communications equipment including webcams at the lookout. The batteries are about 140lbs each so pretty tough to carry in.... The old battery system coming out can be taken apart into 42 modules that are only around 70lbs each so they can be carried out on pack frames which will happen as we're able over the course of this next Summer.

Thanks Sparky, always appreciate the first-hand info!

[Midwest Ed]

Helicopter was moving food storage boxes out to campgrounds. The boxes were staged at several places around park this Fall and then slung to the nearby campgrounds by helicopter. Boxes are heavy, large and really difficult to move any distance by hand.. Helicopter got them close.. crews will carry them to their final spots and get them setup for use.

Loads going up to the Greenstone were 1700 pounds of replacement batteries for the communications equipment including webcams at the lookout. The batteries are about 140lbs each so pretty tough to carry in.... The old battery system coming out can be taken apart into 42 modules that are only around 70lbs each so they can be carried out on pack frames which will happen as we're able over the course of this next Summer.

Great update! Thanks.
If you are talking to any of the IT people that handle the web cams, once they get back to work, maybe you could ask about about the settings on the cameras. Specifically, I wonder if there is an adjustment that might be made to allow for it to stay in color mode with less total light. Once the total light drops below a threshold setting it switches to B&W. Also, the Middle Island camera setting appears to need calibration or some sort of major adjustment.

[RedLeg]

Let's not forget the Smithwick camera

[sparky49931]

We can adjust the Color/B&W threshold, but going any further results in poor(er) image quality. As the light amplification on the cameras goes up, the noise and blurring goes up also... gives us a color image that looks terrible. I think this is about as good as we're going to get with these cameras. If you're out there with them, it's super dark when they finally drop to B&W.

Smithwick is from a Summer power only location and uses a pan/tilt/zoom camera we bought some time ago that just doesn't work as well as we would like. We've since determined that individual, fixed position cameras are the way to go for reliability and reproducibility of the images.
Smithwick should be available this Summer when we get the power on (likely early May) and and as funding allows, I expect to be replacing that camera with individual view cameras like we have at the other sites. We do have some new cameras going in this Summer that I think will be popular, and as we work on an upgrade to the overall power system at Rock Harbor, we're considering how we can run cameras there year round.

I believe I've shared it here before, but here is a camera that's up and running but hasn't made it on the website yet.
https://www.nps.gov/webcams-isro/mottsw.jpg

Appreciate everyone commenting, discussing and, most importantly, viewing the cameras. Running cameras 24/7 in a very remote and isolated location like Isle Royale takes some time, effort and money. Public use and engagement really helps the park understand the value placed on them by the public. Comments (good or bad) made directly to the park receive a lot of attention and consideration internally. https://www.nps.gov/isro/contacts.htm

[Midwest Ed]

Appreciate everyone commenting, discussing and, most importantly, viewing the cameras. Running cameras 24/7 in a very remote and isolated location like Isle Royale takes some time, effort and money. Public use and engagement really helps the park understand the value placed on them by the public. Comments (good or bad) made directly to the park receive a lot of attention and consideration internally. https://www.nps.gov/isro/contacts.htm

I really appreciate your filling in the details and also your hard work. I've noticed how it is interesting when the northern lights are showing full and then the phase of the moon and shifting cloud cover and makes things go a bit darker so it switches to B&W. Here's a time lapse I made from the light show last Wednesday night.
Mott Island Northern Lights from Dusk 'til Dawn 3/26/2025

The new view of the Rock Harbor Channel looks great. Anything on the Middle Island camera?
There used to be a camera aimed at the Snug Harbor docks during some construction. Is it still available?

Has there been any thought to during the months when the park is closed to devoting more network bandwidth to the cameras? I know things are always limited by the solar/battery power available but if possible it would be nice if the 5 minute update rate could be reduced.

[sparky49931]

Nice timelapse! I assume you have a script scraping the images from our website?

Not sure what you mean by Middle Island Camera? We have a camera looking down at Middle Islands Passage from Ojibway Lookout... Not thrilled with the color balance on it lately so it will get some attention in a month or so when I can get up there. There are plans for moving the MOTT SW camera up to the top of the ower this Spring which will provide a different view into that area (and as a bonus, without the guy wires in the image)

The camera at the snug harbor docks was taken off the web after construction was complete to help maintain privacy for the visitors.. Because of where it was located, it was pretty easy to identify individual people in the image. There is a whole legal process we go through for authorization to install cameras anywhere, and part of that process is considering what impacts a camera and it's mode of operation will have on the privacy of the public.

In the past, power was our major limiting factor for camera operation (remember when we had like 3 images a day through the winter?) Since then we have significantly increased the size of our solar arrays and battery storage associated with the webcams so we have 24x7x365 operation for the most part. It's very cold and dark on the island through the winter so it takes a surprisingly large system to provide 24/7 reliable power. With power limitations largely addressed, the availability and update rate on the current cameras is primarily constrained by bandwidth availability. There are obviously options to increase the bandwidth available, but everything comes at a cost. I've prioritized more views and areas over more frequent updates or live video from any one site.

I have been toying doing an automated, hour by hour increase on the update rate for north facing cameras based on Kp Index, but there are a whole lot of things on my plate besides the cameras so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.

There has been a lot of background work happening the past couple of years and I think this season we'll finally see some results from that work and investment in the form of some new views.

[RedLeg]

More bandwidth likely requires Starlink (or a European provider) because 5g signal propagation isn't spectacular. I say shutter them all before you pay a dime for Starlink

[Midwest Ed]

Nice timelapse! I assume you have a script scraping the images from our website?

Not sure what you mean by Middle Island Camera? We have a camera looking down at Middle Islands Passage from Ojibway Lookout... Not thrilled with the color balance on it lately so it will get some attention in a month or so when I can get up there. There are plans for moving the MOTT SW camera up to the top of the ower this Spring which will provide a different view into that area (and as a bonus, without the guy wires in the image)

Yes, I can capture and save the web camera images automatically.
Yes, the color or white balance on the Middle Islands cam has never seemed accurate.

Here is the same night but from Mt. Ojibway North Shore cam:
Time Lapse of Northern Lights on 3/26/25 from Mt. Ojibway

It sounds like we will be seeing some nice things this coming season. Keep up the good work.
Are you the "lucky" guy that gets to climb the tower?

I have also expressed my gratitude for the web cameras at the official ISRO feedback portal.