COUNTRY SCIENTIST
Record Your World
from a Picture Post
By Forrest M. Mims III, Amateur Scientist
SCENIC PHOTOS OF STORMS, CLOUDS,
sunsets, mountains, and beaches are loaded
with data about the natural world. Even pictures of backyards and parks can provide
valuable environmental information.
For decades, NOAA and NASA satellites
have collected images of the Earth from
space. In recent years, ground-based webcams have captured views of scenic sites
around the world. But organized sequences
of high-resolution landscape and sky photos
taken of the same scene over several years
or more are not that common. This lack provides an important opportunity for amateur
scientists to fill a huge data void. All that’s
necessary is a digital camera and a platform
to place it on, so that it can be used to collect
images at regular intervals.
landscape each spring and fall. Over the years,
changes in the height of trees were noticeable.
Those surface changes were accompanied by
sky changes, especially haze from Asian dust
and Mexican smoke during spring and African
dust during summer and fall.
I didn’t fully appreciate the environmental
record these images provide until learning
more about Picture Post, which is a part of
Digital Earth Watch (DEW), a NASA-sponsored
partnership of various organizations. According to the project’s website, “Picture Post was
created for DEW as a tool for nonscientists
to monitor their environment and share their
observations and discoveries.”
The Picture Post Project
John Pickle, whose background includes
geology and meteorology, is on the science
faculty of Concord Academy in Concord,
Mass. In 2005, Pickle began Picture Post, a
carefully designed project to collect periodic
sets of landscape images using a digital camera pointed in eight different angles from an
octagonal platform mounted atop a post.
The Picture Post project made total sense
to me. Since the fall of 2000, I’ve taken almost
daily digital fisheye photographs from a post
in a 1.5-acre field adjacent to my office. So far
I’ve collected more than 2,700 images of the
sky above and the horizon around the post.
While these photos were originally intended
to record haze and clouds in the sky, it soon
became obvious that the images were also
recording changes in the trees and other
vegetation around my site as well as a nearby
field and farm. Seasonal changes were very
obvious, especially the transformation of the
How to Make and Install a Picture Post
My original “picture post” is just a 6' length of
4× 4 lumber topped by a 17" length of 2× 6 lumber that serves as an instrument and camera
platform. Both are pressure-treated to prevent
rot. Pickle’s Picture Post design is better suited
for recording both the surrounding landscape
and the overhead sky.
While Pickle also uses a 4× 4 post, he recommends a length of 7' to 8', 4' of which will be
above ground. His camera platform is much
more than a flat surface — it incorporates a
raised octagon designed to permit a camera
to capture a 360° sequence of images around
the post. The camera is held with its back
against each segment of the octagon, and an
exposure is made. A ninth photo is then taken
with the camera looking straight up.
While ordinary pressure-treated lumber can
be used for the picture post, Pickle recommends a plastic composite post because of its
virtually unlimited life. The top of my post is
chest high (about 4', the same height recommended by Pickle), although young children
might require a shorter post. A step stool
30 Make: makezine.com/28
