Monday, Feb. This webcam points northeast uprift , towards the summit of Mauna Loa, to cover portions of the upper Southwest Rift Zone.
The upgrade included a higher resolution webcam with a wider field of view. The V1cam webcam, which provides the livestream at the summit of Kilauea, is a pan-tilt-zoom model that allows HVO staff to adjust the view remotely based on changes in activity in the caldera. The images taken over a century ago helped document the activity people were viewing in that era. Today, technology allows us to monitor beyond the capabilities of the human eye.
Thermal cameras show and autonomously detect high temperature activity day or night. The images from both visible-light and thermal cameras are transmitted in real time to the observatory, then online to the public. Camera technology is continually improving and over the past year, HVO staff have been working hard at upgrading the webcam network to keep pace with the changing technology and bolster our monitoring abilities.
One part of this upgrade is replacing aging webcams with newer, more capable models. Some of the cameras recently decommissioned were well over 10 years old. While those were adequate for basic monitoring, new cameras produce much higher quality images and some can remotely pan, tilt, and zoom PTZ their views.
For years, our broad views of the summit caldera came from cameras in the HVO observation tower on Uekahuna bluff. With the deconstruction of that building, a new site was needed.
