Docs · How it works · Install · Camera · Using the desk

First night

  1. Install the recorder and fill in site.json. The camera password stays in that file, on the house machine.
  2. Aim the camera with the night profile. IR off. NTP on.
  3. Open https://<host>:8443 and set a password of at least 10 characters. There is one password for the house.
  4. Recording runs from 15 minutes before civil dusk until 15 minutes after civil dawn. The night folder is named with the evening's date.
  5. In the morning the inbox lists what moved. Satellite names wait until the camera is calibrated. Planes are sorted by their strobe, not named. The clip is still there.
  6. Email, if you want the morning list, is under Settings. A Gmail account needs an app password, not the normal login password.

If something is wrong

Open Help on the review desk. That form sends your email, the subject, the message, the recorder version, the camera's latest health check, and the last 200 lines of the newest night's recorder log. The camera password, its address, your latitude and longitude, and email addresses are removed from those lines before they leave the house. It does not send site.json. You can also write from the support page on this site, with no account.

The desk talks to https://twilightscan.com unless site.json has "community" or the process has TWILIGHTSCAN_COMMUNITY. The environment variable wins.

What you should see

  • A new 10-minute segment about every 10 minutes while it is recording.
  • The camera health line stays up. If the camera disappears, recording pauses and retries.
  • After dawn, a full pass writes the morning inbox. Clips and a gallery follow that pass.
  • Raw video is deleted by age and by free disk space. A night with a keep file is left alone.