Webcams are very much the unsung heroes of the Web, with thousands of cameras
now trained on sites and scenery that make surfing a heap more fun鈥攖hough
not all of them are intended for that purpose. Fancy catching dawn breaking in
Alaska? Check out the airport webcams at www.flightcam.net, which show pilots
images of the weather conditions in almost real-time, at three rural airports in
Alaska鈥檚 interior. But catch it at the right time of day and the view鈥檚
spectacular.
lThere are many guides to the cam sites that are out there: try
www.earthcam.com, where you can search cams by category, from 鈥渁rt and
entertainment鈥� to 鈥渨eird and bizarre鈥�, via 鈥渟pace and science鈥�. A new site
listed there is National Geographic鈥檚 bearcam
(www.nationalgeographic.com/bearcam)
that lets you see what鈥檚 said to be the world鈥檚 largest gathering
of brown bears, drawn by teeming hordes of spawning salmon.
Another resource site, which is no longer maintained but which still lists
many interesting cams, is Webcams On The World at
www.thecyberguy.com/webcam.htm,
while Webcam Central at www.camcentral.com lists even more
categories of cameras than Earthcam. Hit the 鈥渟cience instruments鈥� category and
you鈥檒l find the Antarctic鈥檚 automated astrophysical site testing lab (AASTO), a
self-powered, self-heated observatory that measures astronomical observation
conditions all year round, helping astronomers plan future sites for
observatories (http://bat.phys.unsw.edu.au/~aasto/).
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If you come across a webcam site where nothing is happening, take
heart鈥攊t may just be the webmaster saving money on the phone line time.
There鈥檚 normally a message somewhere on a site telling you when the site will be
补肠迟颈惫别鈥攕别别 www.hauntedvalley.com/webcam.htm, for instance. Local calls to
ISPs are free in the US, of course, so cams usually stay live indefinitely.
