Time-Lapse Video - David Mathre Photography

Four Years Ago (06-March-2016) — Indian Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 61: Neptune Day while crossing the Indian Ocean.

Neptune Day celebration. Time-lapse video of the shellback initiation for those crossing the equator their first time. Over 50 of the students and life-long learners had their heads shaved.

I feel for the Semester at Sea voyagers this year as they miss several ports to avoid the COVID-19 virus. I wish them well, and hope the program is able to continue in the future.

Thursday (27-February-2020) — New Jersey

Indoor Wintertime Nature in New Jersey.

A Red Poppy flower opened this morning. The seed was planted 124 days ago in one of my indoor AeroGarden hydroponic gardens. I have been watching the bud for the last several day wondering when it would finally open — each day setting up a camera to record a time-lapse video. Images taken every 10 seconds with a Nikon D850 camera and 105 mm f/2.8 macro lens with a 2.0x TC-E III teleconverter (ISO 100, 210 mm, f/8, 1/30 sec). Next time I need to do a better job trying to keep things in focus as the flower moved as it was opening.

Winter Nature in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 105 mm f/2.8 macro + 2.0x TC-EIII (DAVID J MATHRE)

Daily Electric Energy Used (66.1 kWh) from Sense Home Energy Monitor and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (48.1 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Cloudy, then more sun. A deficit of 18 kWh.

Sunday (16-February-2020) — New Jersey

Indoor Wintertime Nature in New Jersey.

A Red Poppy flower opened this morning. The seed was planted 113 days ago in one of my indoor AeroGarden hydroponic gardens. I have been watching the bud for the last several day wondering when it would finally open — each day setting up a camera to record a time-lapse video.

Daily Electric Energy Used (78.4 kWh) from Sense Home Energy Monitor and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (32.5 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Not as much sun, but warmer so the Geothermal HVAC didn’t have to work as hard. Still a deficit of 45.9 kWh.

Weekly Electric Energy Used (536 kWh) from Sense Home Energy Monitor and Weekly Solar Electric Energy Produced (181 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Total deficit of 355 kWh. Usage should be going down now that the Server/Storage upgrade is complete. On days that the sky is clear more power is being generated as the sun gets higher above the horizon.

Current Weather Conditions

Sunday (09-February-2020) — New Jersey

Wintertime in New Jersey — Maple Syrup Production.

This was the third neighborhood maple syrup boil down this winter, although I was not here for the first two. The weather has not been conducive for maple sap production (cold nights below freezing and warm days above freezing). The following Little Planet Time-lapse Videos were recorded with a Garmin VIRB-360 camera. Approximately 80 gallons (~300 L) was boiled down to 11 quarts (~10.4 L) with a density of 1.14 g/mL. The material needs to be further concentrated to get to a sugar concentration of 66 wt%. We had issues near the end of the day where some of the solution burned so there will be a smokey flavor issue.

Daily Electric Energy Used (75.2 kWh) from Sense Home Energy Monitor and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (43.3 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Sunny most of the day. Actually, the most solar energy produced since 05-October-2019. Still not enough to completely power the indoor hydroponic gardens, keep the house warm, and power the Synology image servers. A deficit of 31.9 kWh.

Current Weather Conditions

Thursday (02-January-2020) — North Carolina to New Jersey

Gone to See Florida — 2019/2020 Road Trip.

Second day of the trip back home. A Garmin VIRB-360 camera was set up to record the trip as a time-lapse video — presented as a Little Planet drive. A little over 9 hours travel time, 576 miles, and 32 mpg (diesel). For whatever reason, the Garmin didn’t record location info for the entire trip, I used the information recorded by my White Rhino.

Daily Electric Energy Used (58.7 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (28.3 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. A deficit of 30.4 kWh. Most of the hydroponic gardens were off or only on for fewer hours. The geothermal HVAC and hybrid heat-pump hot water heater used more energy to bring the house out of vacation mode.