For my dad's birthday, I decided to make a system with a raspberry pi and camera that would take a time-lapse of the sun rising at our house in NH and send it in an email to my dad every day.

Once a year on his birthday it compiles a special email with a seasonal time-lapse. Read more below.

<aside> <img src="/icons/list_green.svg" alt="/icons/list_green.svg" width="40px" /> There are several steps that make this possible.

1. I am using an old Raspberry Pi 3 to run everything and the raspberry pi camera
2. Crontab starts the Python program at 4:00 AM every morning (well before sunrise)
3. The Python program
   1. Looks up the time of dawn with the astral library
   2. Waits until dawn
   3. Then runs the rapstill time-lapse terminal command to take a photo every ten seconds for two hours
   4. Uses FFMPEG to combine the photos into a single .mp4 movie
   5. Uploads the video to a google drive folder using the pydrive library and Google Drive API
   6. Sends an email to everyone on a list with a link to the video and the date
4. Extra: there is another Python script that runs at noon every day which takes a single picture which I can later compile into a time-lapse spanning multiple years </aside>

Here are some additional cool time-lapses that the Raspberry Pi captured

Look for the ducks!

Look for the ducks!

Check out that mist!

Check out that mist!

2022: For my dad’s birthday this year, I added some new features to the program. Now, every year on his birthday it sends a special and completely automated email

<aside> ✉️ Happy Birthday Dad!

If my calculations are correct you are now 53 years old!

As an extra special birthday gift (which is completely automated) here is the seasonal time-lapse created from pictures taken from when I first gifted this to you until today

Check out the leaves the changing and falling!

Check out the leaves the changing and falling!

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2023: For my dad’s birthday this year, I added a feature that sends an automated email whenever a power outage is detected and the Raspberry Pi reboots. Not super important, but a fun little thing

<aside> ✉️ POWER ANOMALY DETECTED. Power recovered. Downtime 0:00:06.939611 (hh:mm:ss:...). All systems nominal.

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Over the past couple of years an additional 15 of my friends and family have requested and been added to the sunrise email sender. If you too would like a scenic 30 second NH sunrise time-lapse emailed to your inbox each morning feel free to reach out, and I’ll be happy to add you.

<aside> 👏 What people are saying

Good morning! I just want to thank you again for including me on the SH sunrise. It’s my daily meditation. I take deep breath and center while it’s downloading and playing. Namaste 🧘‍♂️- My Aunt

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🔥

What do I even look at

We love pond hockey

Ice forming

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© Jesse Gilbert 2025

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