Isle Royale Forums

The Ojibway SW Webcam has been replaced with a newer camera.

View is similar, but new camera has a different focal length so produces a more natural appearing image with less fisheye effect.
Camera also has very good low light performance so you can actually see some stuff in the dark of night.

That's spectacular. Also scratches the itch for a hike I've always wanted to do - up to Mt. Ojibway at night!

Nice! Seems to be a higher-res camera too. Nice display of fall color right now.

Nice capture of the Milky Way!

What are the lights on each side at the horizon? They show up consistently each morning. My first thought was Mott Island on the left, but it doesn't seem feasible when I look at the map. I'm at a total loss on the right.

Vandy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 1:27 pm What are the lights on each side at the horizon? They show up consistently each morning. My first thought was Mott Island on the left, but it doesn't seem feasible when I look at the map. I'm at a total loss on the right.

Guessing they're towers on the mainland. You can see IR from Mt Brockway in Copper Harbor on a clear day.

Lights from the Canadian shoreline, and particularly a light dome from the city of Thunder Bay, are usually visible from, for instance, Huginin Cove campground. That would account for the lights on the horizon to the right

I don't think the lights to the right are from Thunder Bay. The camera is pointed strongly southwest, and Thunder Bay is about a 90 degrees angle to the right, probably out of the range of the camera. I wondered if the lights are from a passing freighter.

Lights on the left side are from the U.P. of Michigan..

Lights on the right are from Canada... along the shoreline North of the border. Thunder Bay is more to the North (right) of that image.

Winter project is calling out landmarks/light locations to help people orient themselves


Here is another camera view that we're working on making public.. This image is looking North from Ojibway Tower. City of Thunder Bay is the massive light show to the left of middle. The camera is using a very long exposure time... up to 2 seonds to get the low light images. It's a windy night tonight and the tower is shaking just a little bit... that's why the points of light are a little blurry. Working to get the images all balanced out for overall best quality under varying conditions.

So is this new camera on some sort of a gimbal or remotely controlled mount that let's you change the field of view?

That's a neat image of Thunder Bay.

What's up with the Mott Island WebCams?

RedLeg wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:31 am What's up with the Mott Island WebCams?

Either not enough sun to charge, or no one's there to fix something that broke--in which case it could be out until April or May.

I was just wondering because the Mott cameras were up last winter.

Strange, all (3) Mott cams had just the image headers only update on 12/23 but nothing after that

The webcams use cellular data modems to communicate with the world during the winter months when the island is not open. The signal comes from the Keweenaw Peninsula about 60 miles distant. Unfortunately, this Fall just about the time the island was closing, the cellular provider used by the park made some changes to their network and what was once a very weak, but generally usable signal for our equipment is now just a little bit weaker and generally unusable. The park has other means of communications, but the cellular modems were preferred for this use because they were inexpensive to operate and used relatively little power. The reason we're getting some images from Ojibway and not Mott is that Ojibway Lookout sits up much higher than even the top of the 196 foot tower at Mott Island so gets a slightly better signal from across the lake.

It's possible that we can make some tweaks and get the cell modems running again but need to be on the island to do it, and it just didn't pencil out logistically or cost wise to get a technician out there for this purpose over the winter.

4th week of April we should have a technician on the island and plan to get the webcams running 24/7 again as we can work the time in amongst the other opening tasks. Not sure how we will do the connectivity for next winter, but we have a few options to consider.

Here are a few other cameras at Ojibway you can check out... they are not linked on the park's website yet, so the forum members here get the sneak peek preview. Same connectivity as the SW viewing camera so subject to the same limitations/outages.

https://www.nps.gov/webcams-isro/northshore.jpg

https://www.nps.gov/webcams-isro/greenstoneridgene.jpg

https://www.nps.gov/webcams-isro/middleislands.jpg