CAMERA LOCATIONTOP
Hamcam is located at University of California's Lick Observatory, on the summit of 4200-foot Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range, twenty miles east of San Jose. The camera is situated on Observatory Peak near the western end of the east-west running ridge that forms Mt. Hamilton, on the building housing the Great 36-inch Refractor, the Nickel 1-meter Reflector, and the Lick Visitors' Center.
Hamcam can be turned to capture views in all directions. Typically, it is pointed northeast along the ridge of Mt. Hamilton where several of Lick's telescopes can be seen, including the Shane 3-meter Reflector, or to the north or south in the directions of the 1-meter Nickel Reflector or the Great Refractor, respectively, or to the west and northwest towards San Jose and other cities surrounding San Francisco Bay.

TECHNICAL DETAILSTOP
Hamcam is a one mega-pixel Kodak DC-120 camera enclosed in an enviromentally controlled Pelco camera housing, mounted on a mast about 30-feet above groundlevel, on the roof of the observatory's Main Building. It is carried on a pan-tilt mount constructed using two off-the-shelf Radio Shack antenna rotators and ordinary one-and-a-half-inch pipe.
The camera is controlled from a PC running Erdman Video Systems' VM95 software. Pictures are captured and uploaded to our server at four-minute intervals, 24 hours a day.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSTOP
Hamcam and its associated webpages owe a particular debt to Larry Webster at Mount Wilson Observatory's 150-foot solar telescope, on whose Towercam they are largely modeled. Many details of Hamcam's hardware, software, and operation benefited from Larry's experience and generous assistance.

Thanks also to Jerry Martin and John Morey of the Lick Observatory staff for their help mounting and cabling the camera. Special thanks to Tony Misch for setting up the Hamcam hardware and software and managing the cameras through 2007.

Please direct questions or comments regarding Hamcam to Elinor Gates at Lick Observatory (egates@ucolick.org).