Command line tool to test if sunrise/suncheck in your scripts

Dodutils

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Hello,

Today I prepared a camera dedicated to do a TimeLapse of a Peony's growth (cameras are not only a security thing) so I need to take regular snapshots daytime only not at night but because the growth will last for many days the sunrise/sunset timing will change a lot.

So before I develop a tool myself (too lazy) I started digging and found a very basic command line tool that can answer that question, it is easy to include in a scheduled script that would run every 5 mins for example or launch the tool and ask it to only proceed/quit once the target sun status has been reached you can also use parameters to add some special options like +/- time offset if you want the script to work 2 hours after or before sunrise or wait for sun to reach x°angle.

Of course there are certainely other possible usage for such tool and (may be such kind of tool also exist in online version that can be called with a wget/curl and check for returned text) and if you have a camera with IR you could also check the IR light status and use it as a trigger instead of real sunrise/sunset but if you want something precise according to real sunrise/sunset this tool is for you.

The win32 exe is provided pre-compiled and the sources are available, compile it as usual with a call to "make" command inside the directory containing the makefile (I tested compilation for RasPi no problem).

Sunwait - Browse Files at SourceForge.net

Example 1: sunwait wait rise offset -1:15:10 51.477932N 0.000000E
Wait until 1 hour 15 minutes 10 secs before the sun rises in Greenwich, London.

Example 2: sunwait poll exit angle 10 54.897786N -1.517536E
Indicate by program exit-code if is Day or Night using a custom twilight angle of 10 degrees above horizon. Washington, UK.
 
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Dodutils

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You should post the time lapse video when you finish. :)
I already have something because last year I was recording a small fieldmouse activity at the place of the Peony and then I noticed this Peony growed a lot so I tried to create a manual TimeLapse with pictures extracted manually from this fieldmouse's motion alert videos, and after that I did a better TimeLapse of how Poeny's "breathe" during the day (and noticed that during rainy it do not "breathe" at all).

The bad TimeLaspe :


Peony's "breathing" during the day :


The Fieldmouse I was originally watching :

 
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wantafastz28

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I've been meaning to catch the mice/rat that has been burrowing under my A/c units, but I think they are gone since the last time the pest control guy came. The surrounding wall of my house is for a park/walkway, and you can see hole after hole from where they live on the other side. I worry about the dog getting one and it possibly having a disease.

Impressive how much the plants move in one day.
 
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