List of interesting/cool things OctoCam has captured
With
1,761 videos in the archive, OctoCam has definitely caught some interesting memories. Here's just a couple of them! If you find anything interesting in the timelapses, contact me on my website so I can add it here.
You can also use my personal weather station website,
Beacon Hill Weather, to cross-reference any interesting weather conditions the station logged with what OctoCam might've seen.
OctoCam has a tendancy to capture lightning strikes, here's a list of known strikes (which is non-comprehensive):
- - April 28, 2021 at 2:07:00 AM
- - May 22, 2022 at 8:55:00 PM
- - May 28, 2022 at 3:22:40 AM
- - July 2, 2022 at 4:03:20 AM
- - July 13, 2023 at 11:45:00 PM
- - July 13, 2023 at 11:54:00 PM
- - July 14, 2023 at 12:18:20 AM
- - July 14, 2023 at 12:20:40 AM
- - July 14, 2023 at 4:23:40 AM
- - July 14, 2023 at 4:47:20 AM
- - April 30, 2024 at 4:28:00 AM
- - Many, many, many more times. I need to go through the archive and update this.
Since the camera upgrade in June 2023 any directly captured lightning strikes are usually overexposed (since the new sensor improved night mode by a lot)
Other things include:
- - Blizzard on February 23, 2026 causing whiteout conditions between 5:30 - 8:30 AM, causing South Station to be invisible for a bit
- - Snowstorm on January 25/26, 2026.
- - Rainbow visible on July 25, 2025 at about 7:30 PM. Also, some good cloud action on this day (rare to see since OctoCam captures a small slice of the sky now!)
- - South Station tower finishing construction through 2024 and into mid 2025, OctoCam was able to capture a decent portion of it. Check the yearly/monthly timelapses for better progress, daily timelapses won't reflect it that well.
- - Celtics parade on June 21, 2024 causing increased foot traffic at South Station.
- - On May 10, 2024 starting at 9:50 PM and going thru May 11, 2024 until sunrise, OctoCam captured the aurora borealis (!!) during the strong geomagnetic storm. Peak times are at about 10:05 PM on 5/10 and 2:40 AM on 5/11.
- - On April 24, 2024 at about 5:05 PM, you can see an awesome double rainbow get captured.
- - Very awesome sunrise on April 18, 2024.
- - The clouds were DANCING on the morning of March 28. Night mode did what it does best!
- - March 23, 2024 was the first time OctoCam captured ice on trees - look closely around 7-9 AM in the morning on the trees to the right.
- - On March 20, 2024 at about 12:56 AM, I learned that you really can see my pink crocs from quite a distance away.
- - January 7, 2024 has one of the more intense snowstorms OctoCam has captured so far.
- - On September 15, 2023 at 9:49:40 AM, the car driving northbound is a Google Street View car.
- - The morning of March 24, 2023 has one of the best sunrises seen from OctoCam - absolutely beautiful lighting on the clouds.
- - On February 25, 2023, you can see the entire field iced over in the morning along with a cool sunrise.
- - Very cool sunset on January 15, 2023, plus some low hanging clouds turning into snow after sunset.
- - On the morning of January 4, 2023, there's lots of low hanging fog on OctoCam.
- - Cool sunset on December 28, 2022.
- - On the morning of December 24, 2022, you can see the salt on the roads sort of ice over and turn the road white.
- - Cool sunrise on December 21, 2022.
- - On December 14, 2022 at around 2 AM, a little snow squall is visible.
- - On December 7, 2022 just after 8 AM, you can see increased traffic on OctoCam due to a traffic diversion from a tragic shooting a couple blocks away.
- - On November 28, 2022 at 7:30:00 AM, OctoCam picked up a government drone (bird) landing on the roof of my apartment building. There's some bird activity at 7:24 AM as well.
- - Super cool sunrise on 11/28/2022!
- - Snowstorm in the evening on November 15, 2022 - you can see the cloud layer descend into the ground and it looks amazing!
- - A LOT of construction occurred on my street between mid October 2022 and mid November 2022. Notable dates include the road being teared up on 10/26/2022 and repaved on 11/10/2022.
- - RIP to the tree that use to live on the left side of the frame - teared up on September 21, 2022 in the morning
- - On August 7, 2022 in the afternoon, a rainbow was visible from OctoCam!
- - At 9:22:00 AM on July 26, 2022 (you'll need to go frame by frame to see this), a flying friend photobombs Octocam.
- - On July 4, 2022, you can see Americans coming together to celebrate a holiday that truly unites us - national fire fireworks asynchronously after sunset day.
- - A fireworks show can be seen on OctoCam just after sunset on June 30, 2022
- - Possible distant lightning on June 29, 2022 in the early hours of the morning?
- - Crazy snow squall on February 19, 2022 at about 4 PM, lowest visibility ever seen on OctoCam. Download the video and go frame by frame for this one!
- - Huge blizzard on January 29, 2022. Go frame by frame at about 1 PM and you can see the flag being ripped off the clock tower.
- - OctoCam got horribly out of alignment in the early morning of January 20, 2022. By like 15 degrees.
- - Captured a lunar eclipse on November 19, 2021 in the early hours of the morning!
- - Dangerously windy on February 18, 2022 in the morning
- - Bug photobombs OctoCam on October 16, 2021 at about 1 PM
- - On the last page of the archive look for the March 23, 2021, 11:53 AM timelapse. Incredibly cool fog!!
- - OctoCam's first video ever on March 3, 2021 on the modern stack. But take a look at February 18, 2021, that timelapse was using MotionEye OS!
- - Super cool snow squalls on March 14, 2021
- - OctoCam being in a secret location for about a week around May 15-20, 2021.