My question relates to the correct settings for the safety monitor and observatory control with a view to being able to close the roof when a weather event is triggered. I have automated my observatory using the Sky Roof obs control system which is working well and I have a weather sensor from Aurora Eurotech that writes a data file that can be read by the Boltwood Safety Monitor. I have tested the Safety Monitor function with the Boltwood Driver and it seems to work at least to the extent of showing the safe/unsafe status depending on the settings and current weather conditions. My mount is the Skywatcher EQ8 and I am using EQMOD for mount control.
The main thing that I want to achieve is to have SGPro close the roof when the safety monitor indicates very cloudy or wet/rain conditions. This is what I have come up with in terms of config and it would be good if this could be checked please …
Connect to Camera/Filter Wheel/Focuser/Mount
Connect to SkyRoofHub under Equipment/Observatory.
Connect to ASCOM Boltwood OK to Image under Equipment/Safety
(set safety conditions in Boltwood driver first)
Control Panel/Telescope: Set to park at end of sequence
Control Panel/Other/Observatory:
Observatory Settings:
Observatory Type: Roll off Roof
Slaving: Slave to Telescope (from reading the help file I’m still not sure if I should check this!)
Slave settings: I am assuming that I set “Mount Park Closes Roof” yes/no?
The Sky Roof Controller can also close the roof in the case of a weather event which is fine as I would just set the time to wait for a minute so that SGPro could take action first.
Note that my OTA is safe in terms of clearing the roof so no concerns about being crunched by a closing roof. I would however like to set this up properly in case I get a larger OTA later.
I am planning to set the maximum safe limits in the Boltwood driver to Dry, Cloudy, Dark (my weather sensor does not read wind).
Any thoughts on the above and where I am going with this?
Thanks,
Rodney.