MINERAL KING WEBCAM FAQ

MINERAL KING WEBCAM FAQ
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The picture on the web page doesn't update very often, sometimes only once each day, why is that?
This is not a "live" webcam like you see some places on the Internet. There is no commercially-available electricity in the Mineral King valley and the power to run the webcam comes from solar panels that store energy in batteries. There is simply not enough energy available to run the webcam continuously. The system is designed to take a few images a day automatically. When extra power is available additional images are sometimes manually commanded. During summertime, when lots of sun is available, I'll probably program it to take many images each day.

If the webcam is turned off most of the time how can I see a picture on the website whenever I look for it?
When the webcam takes a picture it sends it directly to a web server in Colorado where everything about the website is stored. Everything you see on the website comes to you from the web server in Colorado. Only the webmaster (me, glenn@mk-webcam.net) can "see" the webcam directly and I usually only do so when I want to change exposure or other programmable settings in the camera.

What is the resolution of the pictures from the webcam?
The images are currently programmed to be 640x480 pixels with each pixel having one of 16 million different colors. The resolution of the webcam is programmable but to make the images much larger would make file sizes that would take excessive time to download from the web server, particularly for people using a dial-up Internet connection.

Sometimes I see a funny blue streak in a picture? What causes that?
This is called a "tear" and it is a recognized characteristic of the Stardot MP camera and is a typical characteristic of cameras using high-resolution CCD's (charge-coupled-device, essentially the "film" of the camera). It occurs when a large, extremely bright portion of the image is next to a considerably darker portion when the exposure is not precisely matched to the scene. For instance, snow is very bright in winter but the shadows are very deep because the sun is so low in the sky. The camera sets its exposure automatically but sometimes the exposure grid isn't adequate to prevent the tear. I adjust the exposure grid periodically. Summer is a much easier time to get the exposure "right" and only sunrise and sunset images are vulnerable to a tear when the sky is still bright but the landscape is in shadows.

The "hit counter" on the web page shows a large number of hits. Are there really that many people looking at it?
Yes. In fact, the hit counter considerably undercounts the true number of page-loads that occur. Please see the topic "Hit Counter???" in the Special Features menu for a more detailed explanation.

Is the webcam site listed in Google or other search engines?
Yes. I know of at least six search engines that list the webcam site and there are probably more. I've had nothing to do with them listing it. I do know that the Google "robot" comes through about once each day to update its database. The Inktomi Slurp robot (Yahoo) comes through every couple of days as does the MSN robot. Other robots come through from time-to-time, usually their visits are each separated by several days.

What does it cost to run the website?
The web server and domain name registration (www.mk-webcam.net) cost about $50 per year, or roughly $5 per month. Telephone charges are variable but cost about $50 per month on average for the two webcams. The initial hardware cost was about $2,500. Since we built it ourselves there was no cost for design or implementation of the hardware and software that runs the system. I'm a self-employed space communications consultant so if you count the many hours I've spent on this thing my consulting fee would make this prohibitively expensive.

Why did you build and install the webcam system?
It was a hobby project last summer that got way out of control and, despite my best efforts, is still out of control.

Why don't we see more snow in the pictures?
The webcam does not make snow. It only takes pictures of it.