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PhotoSeriesTimelapse.md

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Photo Series of Type "Timelapse"

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This screen allows special configurations for Photo Series in the Timelapse domain.
Of course, every normal Photo Series can be used for Timelapse purposes. However, users often require specific features like specific time slots for multi-day series or automatic exposure adjustment during sunset/sunrise phases (Autoramping / "Timelapse Holy Grail").

This page is dedicated to this kind of configuration settings.
Currently, raspiCamSrv supports limiting photo shooting to configurable periods depending on sunrise and sunset.

Usage of this feature requires calculation of sunrise and sunset, depending on date.
The algorithm (see Sunrise Equation) requires information about the geografic coordinates of the camera position.
These need to be specified on the Settings screen before a Series can be classified as "Sun-controlled".
It is recommended to store the configuration in order to have these settings available after a server restart.

When this screen is activated after a new Series has been created, it will show up as

Timelapse1

  • The fields SeriesName, Interval and Number of Shots refer to the same parameters as screen Series.
  • Activating the checkbox Sun-controlled Series will activate selective photo shooting in periods depending on sunrise and/or sunset.
  • You can specify the Number of Days for which the series shall be active
  • The fields Sunrise and Sunset will show values for the current day.
    If the series will be running for several days, sunrise and sunset will be calculated individually for every day.
  • The system allows the definition of two periods per day during which photos will be shot with the given Interval:
    These are named Period 1 and Period 2
  • At least for Period 1, you need to specify Start and End
    If only one is specified, the system reports an error and does not persist the specified data.
    Start and End are specified if the Reference is not "Unused".
  • The Reference specifies whether "Sunrise" or "Sunset" will be used to limit the intended period.
  • For each Periods Start and End, you can specify a time Shift in Minutes by which the start or the end of the period will be shifted with respect to the selected Reference.
    The Shift can be positive or negative.
  • After Submit, the system will calculate Todays Values for Start and End.
  • Also the time for the Next Shot will be shown.

When submitting entries with a reasonable interval and Number of Days, the system will recalculate the required Number of Shots as well as the expected End of the Series, shown on the Series screen.

Timelapse2

Example: Single Period for Daylight Photos

Timelapse3

Example: Two Periods around Sunrise and Sunset

Timelapse4

Sunrise Equation

The algorithm for the sunrise/sunset equation has been taken from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation

This article also publishes Python code which has been taken as is (version from August 11, 2024, 14:18) and integrated with minor technical adjustments into the RaspiCamSrv Flask server code.

Comparison of the results from this algorithm with those from the "NOAA Solar Calculator" (https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/) for the time of writing at the author's location showed a deviation of -2 Minutes for sunrise and +3 Minutes for sunset.
However, the NOAA Calculator does not seem to take elevation into account.