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About the Webcams |
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The Tawas Bay Webcams are located 2.4 nautical miles north of Buoy Number 2 on the shore of Tawas Bay in northeast Michigan.
The fixed webcam picture is updated every 5 minutes during daylight hours. In the colder months, The fixed camera usually points in a westerly direction. The cameras are located approximately ¼ mile east of the East Tawas State Dock about 15 feet above ground level. In the warmer months, the fixed camera is generally pointed in a southeasterly direction at Tawas Point and the Tawas Point Lighthouse, approximately 2 miles across the Bay. The fixed camera is a Panasonic Palmcorder with a 20x optical zoom and a 150x digital zoom. The image is captured using a Dazzle-DVC-90 video capture device and Image Salsa software. The image is uploaded to the website using the ftp client in the Virtual Weather Station software. The cameras and the weather station run on a dedicated eMachine computer. |
In December 2007, a second webcam was added. It is a Toshiba IK-WB21A
pan/tilt/zoom IP camera that can be controlled remotely by visitors to the
website, using software in the camera itself, or through WebcamXP software. The camera software uses an
ActiveX control so it requires a
Windows operating system and the Internet Explorer browser. The Toshiba camera has a 22x optical zoom and, when using the internal camera software, displays a picture in 640x480 resolution. In the winter months, visitors will only be able to view preset camera positions in order to prevent the camera from being pointed at the sun. Frame rates for the video stream will depend on the visitor's internet connection speed and the number of people viewing the stream simultaneously. Some employer firewalls may block access to the camera. A 320x240 picture of the video stream is shown here, using WebcamXP software and a Flash™ client. This stream can be viewed, and the camera controlled, by any browser capable of running Flash files. |
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East Tawas State Dock View 
Tawas Point View 
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Weather Data Updated Automatically Using Ambient Software's Virtual Weather Station JavaScript Menu Courtesy of Milonic.com |
