Piton de la Fournaise volcano observatory (OVPF)

The Observatoire Volcanologique du Piton de la Fournaise watches one of the most active volcanoes in the world from the island of Réunion. It is part of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, the French public research institute that also runs observatories on Martinique, Guadeloupe and Mayotte, and it has been working on the volcano since 1979.

Its job is to see an eruption coming. A network of seismometers, tiltmeters and GPS stations measures how the ground swells as magma rises, and when an eruption starts the observatory tells the authorities, who close the caldera to walkers. Its cameras are part of that network: they are placed to show where lava breaks out, not to frame a pretty view, which is why some look straight into a crater and others sit low on the flank.

Nine of them publish a fresh image every few minutes, each stamped with the time in UTC. Five are on this site — the ones that show the volcano on an ordinary day; the rest are often inside cloud. The images belong to the observatory and are shown here with credit and a link to its own page.