www.NewtownSquareWeather.com
The tower webcam is located at about 65 feet above ground near the top of my ham radio antenna tower. The camera has full 360 degree azimuth and +/- 90 degree elevation control. It is normally left pointed near the horizon at about 110 degrees azimuth (east-southeast) which provides a view of West Chester Pike near the Springfield Road intersection and to the east. On clear days, the Philadelphia skyline, about 15 miles away, can be seen about 1/4 of the way in from the left side of the picture. The left edge of the group of Center City buildings is 100 degrees azimuth. This camera is primarily intended to show sky conditions.
The window webcam is located in a second floor front window and shows a view of my front yard. This camera is primarily intended to show ground condition.
Starting in mid-November 2002 the live webcam pictures are being
saved once a minute and then a daily MPEG movie of the day is created.
The MPEG plays back the 1440 frames collected each day at 16 frames per
second.. so a full day is compressed into a 90 second movie clip. The
MPEG file for a full day typically runs about 2.4 MB.
There is a choice of viewing the movie clip for the complete previous day or the current day (midnight until the present). The "today" movie is updated once an hour on the hour.
Note: when watching the tower camera movie clip, you will notice that right about sunrise the view will suddenly change.. and then change back about an hour later. This is due to automatic camera repositioning (tilting down about 20 degrees) that occurs near sunrise to prevent direct sunlight from reaching the camera and causing damage. The camera is then automatically repositioned back to the horizon after the sun is high enough in the sky to be out of direct view.
During periods of snow, if possible, the tower camera is pointed towards
the ground to prevent falling snow from covering the lens.