Environmental Data and Devices

It seems like it has been raining for days here. I’m so bored I decided to sit down and actually read the docs and help files on SGP. That lead me to a few questions.

The Environmental Data module gives access to:
◦Temperature ©*
◦Humidity (%)*
◦Dew Point ©*
◦Pressure (hPa)*
◦Cloud Cover (%)
◦Seeing (FWHM)
◦Sky Quality (mag/"^2)
◦Sky Temperature ©
◦Sky Brightness (lux)
◦Wind Speed (meters/sec)
◦Wind Gusts (meters/sec)
◦Wind Direction (compass degrees)
◦Rain Rate (mm/hr)
I have access to the first four via an MBOX weather station. Just wondering here, but I think it might be a good idea to have a web page somewhere that reflects what actual hardware might be used to monitor these.

As a first step could anyone using a weather monitoring device respond as to what they are using?

TIA

It uses the ASCOM ObservingConditions interface, and will connect to any ASCOM ObsCon driver.

In theory, said driver could be written to talk to…well…anything that can tell it weather stuff. (A full list of its properties can be found here IObservingConditions Interface)

So, pretty much any weather station/conditions monitor/whatever that you can read data from is possible.

But beyond hardware, one could also talk to software that reports conditions. As an example, I’ve written an ASCOM ObsCon driver that takes a Weather Underground station ID as configuration, and uses the WUnderground API to extract weather data, and report it. I then configured my AmbientWeather WX station to upload to wunderground, and pull its data that way (since it doesn’t have an interface itself)

If there’s a WUnderground station nearby your imaging location, you’re welcome to give it a try if you wish. :slight_smile: Just send me a PM here, and I’ll be happy to share appropriate files/code/installer/whatever.

@Chris also wrote one (looooooong before I did, and was the inspiration for the idea for me) that talks to OpenWeatherMap in a similar fashion. I’ve rummaged around, and for some reason can’t find a download link (Coulda swon it was on the ASCOM page, but I can’t find it), but I’m sure Chris can provide one.

The OpenWeatherMap sources are on the ASCOM SourceForge site, in the Drivers and Simulators folder.

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