[Horse]

Post webcam observations for August here.  Observations should start with a date and ‘jst’ time (Japan Standard Time) and camera(s).  Describe as best as possible what you see.  Contribute data such as weather conditions, work activities, TEPCO or local news reports, radiation readings, earthquake activity, or any information that documents events occurring at Daiichi.  Comments and analysis welcome.  Help keep an eye on TEPCO's disaster site.  

TEPCO Cameras
Cam1
Cam4

Cameras nearby
TBS-JNN
Tomioka
Iwaki

Direct network stream  Futabagun  http://stm.futabagun.jp/510.swf

Time Lapse Archive  sengoku1904

[Chasaha]

Looks like the tarp covering has been lifted at the CSFP.

Crane activity over Unit 3.

   

Had issues getting the TEPO cams to not error 404. 
Clicked re-display repeatedly and it finally took. (?)

[Horse]

(07-31-2016, 09:40 PM)Chasaha Wrote: Looks like the tarp covering has been lifted at the CSFP.

Crane activity over Unit 3.

Had issues getting the TEPO cams to not error 404. 
Clicked re-display repeatedly and it finally took. (?)

Just a reminder, to view the cams you need Flash 10.1 or greater.  After last month’s windows updates, Flash Player needed an update on the Windows 7 computers.  Download the latest Adobe Flash Player.  https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

8-1
19:07  Fuku fog coming from the left on cam4 over the csfp.  
19:30  Thick fog, can’t see anything.
20:16  Buildings visible again in the fog.
20:50  More clearing.  
22:00  Clear on cam4.  Cam1 still has some fogging on the right side of the screen.  Bright work lights are still on in the lower right corner work area. I haven’t noticed much sparking tonight.

[Horse]

Here's a bit of color on a grey day as the sunset in the humidity puts a bow on the screen.  

8-03 18:27:48 rainbow
8-03 18:29:31 rainbow

   

   

[Horse]

C4 sparks.  Noted a possible cam4 spark at 22:20 and found two sparks.  The first one might be mistaken for a crane light but I let the recording run and found a second one just over 10 minutes later.   Ran it another twenty minutes but didn’t see any more.  

Pics
8-04 22:20:49 c4 spark
8-04 22:31:03 c4 spark

   

   

Cam1 sparks.  Started here because of a bright spark I had noted.  
8-04 20:46:50 spark
8-04 20:51:11 spark
8-04 20:52:32 spark orange pair
8-04 20:55:44 spark
8-04 20:59:50 spark orange tail
Skipped an hour to check out the hour when the cam4 sparks occurred.
8-04 21:59:55 spark
8-04 22:04:49 spark
8-04 22:14:17 spark
8-04 22:17:18 spark
Closest match to the first c4 spark time.
8-04 22:20:09 spark
8-04 22:23:28 spark
8-04 22:36:53 spark bicolor
8-04 22:45:28 spark

Pics
Closest match to the first c4 spark time.
8-04 22:20:09 spark

   

---

Pics
8-04 20:52:32 spark orange pair
8-04 20:59:50 spark orange tail
8-04 22:36:53 spark bicolor

   

   

   

I noted another possible cam4 spark 8-5 19:52, it's still recording and I was busy putting this info up, will check it out later.

[piajensen]

5 & 7 Aug Majia caught some "emissions" which I don't think can be explained by fog or rain or mist. See her screenshots:

http://majiasblog.blogspot.com.uy/2016/0...-2016.html

[Chasaha]

(08-05-2016, 09:57 AM)Horse Wrote: Sparks...
Pics
8-04 20:52:32 spark orange pair
8-04 20:59:50 spark orange tail
8-04 22:36:53 spark bicolor

Personally, I think these are some of the most unique looking Fuku Sparks I've ever seen.

My logical brain wants me to think the ones with a 'tail' may be an indicator of high speed aerial vertical movement.
On the other hand, the reality side of my brain thinks that kind of thought is a crazy impossibility.  

I was wondering if anyone has ever seen a 'spark' during a nighttime fog whiteout?   Maybe they are there and we haven't seen them, because not to many people are going to sit and watch fog whiteness.  If they are there, that could indicate that the source is in the camera.  If none are seen then that 'might' indicate they are beyond the cam lens.  
(just thinkin' out loud)

[Horse]

Pics
8-05 19:52:07 c4 spark
8-05 20:53:45 c4 spark

   

   

---

More cam4 sparks in the midst of Fuku fogging.   Finding four sparks in one hour is a big cluster for that cam.  Cam4 is located much further from the reactors than cam1 is and hasn’t shown as much sparking as cam1.  Did the common spent fuel pool flare up again?  Did r3 or r4 burp?  Something in the air drift by?  

Pics
8-07 00:06:08 c4 spark
8-07 00:17:13 c4 spark 1f
8-07 00:22:23 c4 spark
8-07 00:26:58 c4 spark

   

   

   

   

[Chasaha]

Monday morning in Japan.

Spotted human under crane object on top of the old Unit 4 CSFP area.
I observed him walking and finally exited to the left after several long minutes of working with a beam at the end of the crane line.  The beam 'thing' was removed.

It's hard to tell what type of suit he was wearing.  Under these foggy conditions it looked like a full body dark suit as opposed to the lighter white ones. I am pretty sure from photos I've seen that the dark suits are the lead lined ones.

Working under extreme weather conditions in goo rain.

With human:
   

Without human:
   

->  side note: TBS/jnn cam not online again.  
Still issues with getting TEPCO cams to not error 404.  I just keep clicking and it finally connects.  My software stuff is up to date. 
(...for others out there who may be having issues, don't give up.)

[Horse]

Tepco time study

04:16:45 UTC9 JST
04:16:18 cam1 is 27 secs behind JST
04:17:03 cam4 is 18 secs ahead of JST
Total 45 secs between the two tepcams.

8-09 04:16:45 utc9 cam1

   

8-09 04:16:45 utc9 cam4

   

Nuckelchen finds Camera 4 has a 41 seconds time offset to Camera 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ncg2C2...e=youtu.be

I'm using two different computers side by side and have seen a difference of 42 secs between the two but I usually see a 45 secs difference.  

For the spark collection

   

[piajensen]

[joke] You'd think they'd be using an atomic clock and all would synch correctly....

[Chasaha]

(08-08-2016, 04:45 PM)Horse Wrote: Tepco time study

04:16:45 UTC9 JST
04:16:18 cam1 is 27 secs behind JST
04:17:03 cam4 is 18 secs ahead of JST
Total 45 secs between the two tepcams.

8-09 04:16:45 utc9 cam1
8-09 04:16:45 utc9 cam4

Nuckelchen finds Camera 4 has a 41 seconds time offset to Camera 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ncg2C2...e=youtu.be

I'm using two different computers side by side and have seen a difference of 42 secs between the two but I usually see a 45 secs difference.  

For the spark collection

That bit of confirmed clock information might assist in spotting 'sparkage' from different angles.  

Great screenshot!   I'd call that spark an angled rainbow spark.

[Horse]

(08-09-2016, 11:13 AM)Chasaha Wrote: That bit of confirmed clock information might assist in spotting 'sparkage' from different angles.  

Great screenshot!   I'd call that spark an angled rainbow spark.

I confirmed the clock info for my equipment setup so it could be used more effectively.  The camera clocks are probably set in a menu by some tech glancing at his watch.  There is no doubt some delay before the raw data is released to the internet; now only available from Tepco site flowplayer.  

angled rainbow spark is much better than just another fancy spark.  I see a tricolor four dot spark, orange and blue with the two dots in the middle brightening to yellow.  Angled rainbow is fine with me; like I just caught a tasty fish instead of a marker of radiation.  Thing is though, I see more of the fancy sparks when the spark count goes up.  

The cluster of four cam4 sparks in an hour on August 7th seemed a good time to do a cam1 spark count.  When I grab the spark .bmps I name it with that camera time and a description.  We would still be looking for a time difference of say 40 to 45 secs between a cam1 spark and a cam4 spark.  The 1f at the end of the file name refers to tracking the ones that last a single frame rather than the normal two frames.  The one frame sparks are usually brighter than two frame sparks.  One of the distortions is marked 1f, actually lasted two frames, but was quicker than the normal distortion and recovery so I flagged it 1f.    

8-07 combined spark times, one hour; midnight to 1am

8-07 00:00:55 spark 1f.bmp
8-07 00:01:42 spark.bmp
8-07 00:01:47 spark.bmp
8-07 00:04:47 spark.bmp
8-07 00:05:33 spark.bmp
8-07 00:06:08 c4 spark.bmp
8-07 00:06:31 spark 1f.bmp
8-07 00:06:52 spark.bmp
8-07 00:17:13 c4 spark 1f.bmp
8-07 00:20:58 spark.bmp
8-07 00:21:03 spark 1f.bmp
8-07 00:22:23 c4 spark.bmp
8-07 00:26:58 c4 spark.bmp
8-07 00:29:37 spark.bmp
8-07 00:32:26 spark.bmp
8-07 00:34:19 spark.bmp
8-07 00:36:44 spark.bmp
8-07 00:40:47 distortion.bmp
8-07 00:40:51 distortion end.bmp
8-07 00:42:48 spark.bmp
8-07 00:46:59 distortion 1f.bmp
8-07 00:51:47 spark.bmp

cam1 had 15 sparks and 2 distortions
cam4 had 4 sparks

Pics
8-07 00:05:33 spark
8-07 00:06:31 spark 1f
8-07 00:06:52 spark

   

   

   

[Chasaha]

I just wanted to say a shout out of thanks to Horse for his efforts.
IMO - These screen shots and comments contained throughout these pages are true historical documents.  

Some possible interesting observations...

"I see more of the fancy sparks when the spark count goes up."

"The one frame sparks are usually brighter than two frame sparks."
- Horse

List of questions:

1. Do Sparks only or mostly appear at night?
2. Have Sparks ever been seen during white out, rain or other weather conditions?
   

I can't recall for sure...  just wondering.

A couple of my general observations might be:

1. That they appear more when there is a dark sky backdrop with steamy/foggy emissions rising.
2. They mostly appear at or above the screens center line.  (rare low to the ground)
   

Trying to figure out what we mostly know vs what we think we know and what we don't know.  

[Horse]

(08-10-2016, 10:56 PM)Chasaha Wrote: I just wanted to say a shout out of thanks to Horse for his efforts.
IMO - These screen shots and comments contained throughout these pages are true  historical documents.  

Some possible interesting observations...

"I see more of the fancy sparks when the spark count goes up."

"The one frame sparks are usually brighter than two frame sparks."
- Horse

List of questions:

1. Do Sparks only or mostly appear at night?
2. Have Sparks ever been seen during white out, rain or other weather conditions?
   

I can't recall for sure...  just wondering.

A couple of my general observations might be:

1. That they appear more when there is a dark sky backdrop with steamy/foggy emissions rising.
2. They mostly appear at or above the screens center line.  (rare low to the ground)
   

Trying to figure out what we mostly know vs what we think we know and what we don't know.  

And a big Thank You to you ChasAha for engaging with me on the sparks.  Before Flowplayer, the early days, sparks were mostly white and the colored ones were rarities.  No one was really looking at the sparks.  Before I started recording and reviewing, sparks would flash so quickly that I wasn’t sure what I thought I saw, camera noise maybe.  Remember trying to catch a screen grab during an event?  That anyone caught a few was amazing.  I give credit to Nuckelchen for recording the emissions rising over the plant and pointing out the colorful distortions that occurred.  I didn’t have the equipment he had to process video.  After missing too many events, I invested in more equipment to record video of cam4. I used to call sparks ‘dropouts’ thinking they were just camera noise.  When I reviewed recordings the sparks stood out as different from any equipment lights.  They lasted one frame, blinking in random places in the dark background of the sky.  Few and far between on cam4, I noticed clusters before and during heavy emission events.  Got another computer to record cam1, when the roof came off the sparks were there in the dark background of the sky and on the dark north face of the reactor1 tent and were occurring frequently.  What I noticed when going thru a recording was a regular pattern of the timing of the sparks, definitely not camera noise.  When they were clearing the rubble off of reactor3, I remember seeing ‘dropouts’ on cam4 during the day but I haven’t any recordings so they may have been just equipment lights.  Most of my viewing of the tepcams is sunset to midnight and the sparks start after sunset.  Some of the biggest and brightest sparks have been found after dusk or before dawn.  I think the sparks are just a night time phenomena.  I had hoped to get the Enenews webcam forum observers help to learn more about the sparks but that thread broke and only a few showed up here at CaféRadLab.  Then Tepco reduced us to Flowplayer and we lost more observers even as some of the spark characteristics had changed.  Now the white spark is rare; they all got colorized and last two frames.  I’ve seen sparks in all kinds of weather.  Scanning for sparks in clear weather is easiest.  I see them in Fuku fog conditions; but scanning in fog can be hard on the eyes.  I have seen them in rain with drops falling down the screen.  I have seen them during the radioactive steam events that spread webs on the screen.  The most important characteristic to me was the rate of sparking.  I’ve counted sparks to see if there was any correlation with emission events and the documented high radiation readings on site.  I’ve done a few spark counts from the archive of early 2x time lapse recordings on fuku1long.  What we need is a program that could scan all the recordings for sparks and gives us a nice readout of the night’s activity.  The sampling I’ve done with spark counts is not enough but it has given us a few nice pictures to throw online and show people that the nuclear fission did not stop with Tepco’s declaration of cold shutdown and continues to this day twinkling sparks in the tepcams.

[Horse]

The color of a spark is something that was too subjective for me at times, like yellowish orange; red or violet or purple or blue, and the faintness or brightness was too much to easily track. I’ve thought I’ve seen patterns in the colors as in a lot of greens in one sample vs. a lot of violet in another sample but I haven’t tried to really quantify some of the different characteristics of sparks.    

"The one frame sparks are usually brighter than two frame sparks."  Trying to say this more accurately;
The one frame sparks are usually some of the bright ones amongst the two frame sparks in a spark collection.  

"I see more of the fancy sparks when the spark count goes up."
Yup, the more spark activity; the higher rates of sparking show more of the fancy sparks; multiple dots and multiple colors.  

In a three spark a minute cluster, I notice a pattern of the first one being very faint, the second one very bright and the third one either bright or average.  Have not verified this for all three spark a minute clusters.  

What happened to the white sparks?  What did the change to Flowplayer do to the spark counts and spark characteristics?  What happened to the red sparks, are they the orange ones now? Tepco’s changes have made it difficult to really quantify some of the different characteristics of sparks.    

8-10 pm noticed some sparking.
8-11 pm noticed even more sparking.
Maybe someone should count them.

[Chasaha]

The ongoing Fukushima Daiichi reactors disaster.... steaming.


   

[Horse]

Four one hour spark counts

8-12 00:06:48 spark
10 sparks

8-12 01:08:31 spark 1f
13 sparks

8-12 02:00:41 spark
9 sparks, 1 distortion

8-12 03:05:07 spark
11 sparks

47 pics best viewed by filename to keep the time sequence and play the slideshow
http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam.../8-12-2016

pic
8-12 013220 spark white pair

   


Just a half hour in the rain on 8-18 had 11 sparks; a distortion; webs; and 6 lightening, 2 were very bright.

8-18 035225 spark.bmp
8-18 035702 lightening.bmp
8-18 035805 lightening.bmp
8-18 035805 spark.bmp
8-18 040035 spark 3f.bmp
8-18 040102 distortion.bmp
8-18 040105 distortion end.bmp
8-18 040111 lightening.bmp
8-18 040150 spark.bmp
8-18 040154 web.bmp
8-18 040203 raindrop.bmp
8-18 040225 raindrop.bmp
8-18 040225 spark.bmp
8-18 040311 spark.bmp
8-18 040342 lightening.bmp
8-18 040448 spark.bmp
8-18 040527 spark.bmp
8-18 040531 lightening.bmp
8-18 041332 spark.bmp
8-18 041621 spark.bmp
8-18 041635 spark.bmp
8-18 041841 lightening.bmp

http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam.../8-18-2016

Pic
8-18 04:01:11 lightening.bmp

   

[Chasaha]

(08-18-2016, 08:31 AM)Horse Wrote: 47 pics best viewed by filename to keep the time sequence and play the slideshow
http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam.../8-12-2016


http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam.../8-18-2016

Great spark shots!    I like viewing through the slideshow.   It's a different perspective.

A couple of first impressions.

IMO - Several of the shots may suggest that the spark is on the other side of the crane arm.
The blue spark here seems too square and too perfectly matched to the bars on the crane arm. 

http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam...ort=9&o=13

Sort of the same thing here on the tower...

http://s87.photobucket.com/user/HorseCam...ort=9&o=30


I'm waiting to see one that clearly extends, and is partially hidden, by a crane arm.
Maybe?   

I don't understand why thousands, if not millions, of people aren't viewing this.   Seems like it might be important to future generations.   I'm thinking that when the next Nuclear Catastrophe happens, people will search the net and they may find these historical documents of value.  

Fukushima's Nuclear ongoing, out of control, radioactive contamination of the sea, air and soil is beyond a  Nuclear Engineers, and most politicians, worst nightmare.

[Horse]

8-22 Was noting some sparks on cam1 and saw one on cam4.  Started the recording reviews at 02:40.  The closest c1 spark was 6 minutes after the c4 spark.  Only reviewed twenty minutes of cam4 but I counted the next hour on cam1.  After the c4 spark, cam4 was almost a total whiteout while cam1 started sparking more often.  

8-22 024250 c4 spark.bmp
8-22 024854 spark.bmp
8-22 024916 spark.bmp
8-22 025213 spark 1f.bmp
8-22 025512 spark.bmp
8-22 025738 spark.bmp

8-22 030250 spark 3f.bmp
8-22 030937 spark.bmp
8-22 031847 spark 3f.bmp
8-22 032417 spark.bmp
8-22 032848 spark 3f double.bmp
8-22 033209 spark.bmp
8-22 033214 spark.bmp
8-22 034833 spark 1f.bmp
8-22 034929 spark.bmp
8-22 034936 spark.bmp
8-22 035322 spark.bmp
8-22 035627 spark.bmp
8-22 035654 spark double.bmp
8-22 035824 spark.bmp

Pics
8-22 02:42:50 c4 spark.jpg
8-22 03:18:47 spark 3f.jpg
8-22 03:28:48 spark 3f double.jpg
8-22 03:56:54 spark double.jpg