Tate in Space Webcam

This webcam is located on the current Tate Satellite in orbit.

It is sending images to your browser live, in realtime.

This powerful wide angle webcam developed in collaboration with University College London enables a broad viewing range. Currently the webcam is focussed on our own planet, earth. You may take control of the webcam using the pan and zoom controls above.

How it works

The webcam takes a still every 30 seconds which is then sent to the server. Depending on network traffic the webcam image on your browser should update at approximately 30 second intervals. (if after 40 seconds the image has not refreshed then please press the refresh or reload button on your browser toolbar). It takes a minimum of 20 seconds for the camera to respond to your instructions, and it may take up to a minute for you to see the resulting pan, or zoom.

The camera receives instructions from all viewers collectively. The resulting pan and zoom takes into account all instructions received. If more than one viewer sends an instruction simultaneously the instructions will be queued. This custom camera technology is still in development so on occasion you may get glitching. If this persists, please email space@tate.org.uk with the subjectline 'fault' and a description of the problem you are experiencing.

The satellite is orbiting at approx 400km from earth in a polar to polar orbit. The satellite orbits earth every 92.56 mins. It has been engineered to cover the globe in 15.56 orbits - 1 day. For more information on when the satellite might be visible from where you are click here.

Information can be transmitted almost instantaneously to a ground station via telemetry. The live webcam works in this way, with webcam instructions sent via the internet to the ground station and from there to the Satellite. Images from the webcam are in turn sent to the ground station and from there via the internet to your web browser.