Sunday, February 14, 2010

Barry will be live on cam shortly!

My wife Lorrie and I are in Dallas on vacation and will be visiting the leafy sea dragon cam at the Dallas World Aquarium. We'll snap our own pic and post it shortly!!!

Sadly I forgot to make a sign but will wave and point to my iPhone.

Update:
We did it! The aquarium was absolutely amazing and one of the highlights of our Dallas trip. Admission was $21 each but the sights and surroundings were well worth it. I love animals and particularly aquatic life so this was a fantastic place to visit. I also found it very interesting to see the PTZ cameras mounted inside of the two tanks that are viewable via Live Cams.

Here are a few photos:

This is a photo of my wife pointing to the Sony PTZ camera found in the Manatee tank. This camera can be found in the app via "Search", then "Animals", then go to "Dallas World Aquarium - Manatees".

The camera is in a waterproof enclosure and mounted from above the water surface. It dips just below the surface and has the PTZ features locked out. When this camera was first added to the app it was wide open but I suppose too many people were abusing it so the owners set the fixed position and allow video only now.








Here is a close-up of the camera in the enclosure:
And here is a view from a little farther back where you can see more of the tank. The camera is on the upper left side just above the family watching the manatee swim past.













Next up were the leafy sea dragons. They use a similar device and enclosure but in this case the camera was mounted deeper in the tank and attached to some of the rocks.

This shot was taken with my iPhone from just outside the tank window. You can see one of the sea dragons on the upper right and the camera in the center towards the back.





























And now you'll see a picture that I took from "inside" the tank using Live Cams to snap a photo of the sea dragons. The best part of this photo is that you can see my wife and I looking into the tank as I snap the photo using the app! (It's a little dark but you can see us squatting down and waving)