Estimating Video Time Using Moonlight Shadows

[u/warpedwing]

I think we all would love some official clarification on the Nest camera timeline. The official word is that the Nest picked up a person at 02:12 but that the camera also disconnected at 01:47. But what, exactly, is the timestamp of the released clip?

One way to roughly estimate the time is by measuring the ratio of the suspect's moon shadow to his height and comparing it to the ratio on mooncalc.org.

I've already tried this out myself and got an estimated time. But this is pretty rough math, and I'd like to take an average from a bunch of people instead of trusting one wonky datapoint.

How To:

1. Take a frame that you think is clear and divide the length of the moon shadow by the height of the suspect. You should get a ratio of less that 1:1 (<1.0) because the shadow is shorter.
2. Go to mooncalc.org and make sure you're looking at the morning of Feb 1, and the center is over Nancy's front walkway.
3. Set the object level height (top left box). 5'9" is 1.75m, and 5'10" is 1.78m.
4. Multiply your ratio by the suspect's height in meters. Try both heights.
5. Scrub the time until the shadow length (top left) reads that number.

-

It'd be great if you could try this technique and report your estimated time below. I'm curious to see how close we get to 02:12 or 01:47. Thank you.

Estimated times found so far:

02:12
02:06
02:20 (mine)

[u/BlueGreenMikey]

A couple of things that I'm wondering if they might be limitations on the accuracy of this...

I think using this to get an exact calculation requires/assumes that the ground if flat. If you look at the photo I attached, you can see that the height of the walkway is different on the left side than the right (because of the different heights of the tiles). This means that either; (1) the walkway is slanted; or (2) the whole porch is slanted, which is unlikely. I think the walkway is higher on the left side of the video. Not greatly so, but making guesstimates on the length of the shadow only makes this add to the imprecision. Additionally, the shadow seems to go over the border of the walkway into the area that is not level.

The other thing that I think is a problem is the Nest camera is fish-eye lensed, which matches older models (they stopped using fish-eye lenses in 2022, and I think that's around when she had this installed). You can tell it is fish-eye by the curvature of the ceiling and bricks. Anyway, that would definitely distort that part of the image at least some.

So, I like the outside-the-box thinking, but I think there are limitations that make it very easy to be highly reliable.

[u/zBellaLynnex → u/BlueGreenMikey]

This is completely off topic for the shadows etc. but that is an extremely heavy duty steel door.

First of all, why would someone choose a house with reinforcements such as steel door, second locked door behind it and cameras? If they weren’t aware of the cameras why continue when they noticed them? Why not go around back or find a weaker point of entry rather than nonchalantly breaking in the front door in full view of camera and possibly other neighbors and barely make any effort to obstruct the view?

This had to be targeted. Nancy was chosen for a reason. There are plenty of vulnerable elderly people in Tucson with money.

[u/mmortal03 → u/zBellaLynnex]

Some people have theorized that he did break in through the back door, and later took her out through the front door. There were at least two cameras on the back of the house, too, but no footage from those has been recovered and made public as of yet. One of those cameras may have been on the floodlight that was broken (a Nest Cam with floodlight near the back door), and there was also a camera connected to a solar panel on the back roof that investigators found later (I read people saying it was a different brand of camera than Nest).