Week 5

The summary of week 5: 


The main objective of this week was to combine group A and B's work together as shown in Figure 1 and test the project as a whole.

Figure 1: combination of the two projects

 In order to test the project we had to go outside to track the moon. The group decided on nearby Sefton park, we would pick a secluded spot that would be subject to minimal light pollution and interference from objects like trees.  However, during the initial test of  the project we faced many issues beyond our control. Some of the difficulties we faced included:

• The weather was not as forecast. Strong winds, meant it was difficult for the bracket to be free standing and caused movement of the camera which would of lead to blurring of the photographs had we ran the software.
• Moon visibility was also poor. Cloudiness meant there was no clear view of the moon. 
• Moreover, Group B's monitor failed. This meant there was no way of testing the project that night, as the monitor is needed to set resolution, number of photos to be taken and time delay. The monitor had been working earlier in the day and we put the failure down to the adverse weather conditions. 

Weather forecast and moon visibility for Monday 5th March taken from
Met Office website[1].

Monitor display on first testing attempt

Both teams worked together to try and set up the project despite the weather

No pictures of the moon on the first try just a great team photo!

However, Team Moon Tracker would try again! 

We decided to try again on Wednesday 8th of March. This time the weather was on our side.

Wednesday 8th March weather forecast taken from Met Office website [1].

 We began testing, luckily we did not face the same issues as last time and everything was working as expected.

Junkun and Yukang initiating the code for our position.

Both teams agreed to run the program for around 30 minutes at 640x480 resolution taking a picture around every 20 seconds, then again at 1280x720. Team B overlaid each set of photographs obtained, around 50 images each time.

The final results are shown in the figures below. 

Figure 2: 640 x 480 resolution

Figure 3: 1280 x 720 resolution 

[1] - Met Office, " Liverpool Forecast" http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observation/gcmzggpxq, accessed 4/3/17 then again on 8/3/17