[redundantly]

I wonder how long the sensors on those cameras can survive being pointed up at the sky like that. Surely the image quality would deteriorate over time as the sun destroys the sensor until it eventually stops working.

[abdullahkhalids]

The cameras are only used at night, since that's when meteors are visible.

[squarefoot]

I'd be interested in how they protect the sensors during day. After briefly skimming the sources it doesn't seems to be present any code to activate/deactivate an external shutter or servo to rotate the camera away from sunlight. There is code to turn the camera on and off but it doesn't seem to do anything else beyond that.

[redundantly]

Fully powering off the camera will help, but I imagine with direct sunlight going through the lens and hitting the sensor the heat could still damage it, despite it not recording.

[dylan604]

if you have a camera pointing up, then unless you live on the equator, the sun will not be directly overhead for the vast majority of people.

[caphector]

I have a sky camera (use it for weather and sky observations; my airspace is a bit busy for easy meteor observations). So far my sensor seems to be fine despite an unblinking gaze upwards.

[timthorn]

Looking at the GitHub, the code downloads aircraft movements to avoid false alerts.