Arduino Sky Quality Meter - working!

[Corpze]

So, finally my DIY arduino SQM is finalized, it is not calibrated yet, but hang in there, i will do so in the near future... But first i want to point out that i didn't want any scientific grade SQM but just a simple tool that i can use to compare different photo-sites around my home-town here in Sweden

Feel free to Use it as you want to, if you wan't to calibrate it, change the value at: const float A = 22.0;

More pictures and code are available at SGL's Yahoo-site.

The parts needed for this is:

Arduino approx. 30USD

Light to freq-sensor: TSL237 - electrical component shop 5 USD

0.1-0.01uF capacitator

20 degree lens - ebay 1USD

UV/IR-cut filter between the lens and the sensor - ebay 1 USD

Some kind of housing and cables/connectors

The lens is mounted to a plastic cover with superglue, the UV/IR filter is mounted underneath it and underneath that, the sensor.

The sensor has three connectors, one gnd, one vdd and one signal, so it quiet simple to connect, you should use a capacitator to stabilize the +5v.

Here is a video of it how it works (not the best quality i'm afraid.

And here is the code:

The libraries you need is at the top of the code.

// Author: Daniel Sundström and Ola Karlsson, Arvika, Sweden

#include <FreqMeasure.h>
#include <Math.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
float Msqm;
const float A = 22.0;
int buttonSQM = A2;
int val = 0;
int reading = 0;
int percentage = 0;
LiquidCrystal lcd (12, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6);

void setup() {

pinMode(buttonSQM, INPUT_PULLUP);
digitalWrite(buttonSQM, HIGH);
lcd.begin(16,2);
Serial.begin(19200);
}
double sum=0;
int count=0;
void loop() {
val = digitalRead(buttonSQM);
if (val == LOW) {
	 reading = 1;
	 lcd.clear();
	 FreqMeasure.begin();	
	 while(reading) {

		 if (FreqMeasure.available()) {
		 // average several reading together
		 sum = sum + FreqMeasure.read();
		 count +=1;

		 percentage = count/31.0*100.0;
		 lcd.setCursor(0,0);
		 lcd.print("Reading");
		 lcd.setCursor(8,0);
		 lcd.print(percentage);
		 lcd.setCursor(11,0);
		 lcd.print("%");				

		 if (count > 30) {
			 double frequency = F_CPU / (sum / count);
			 sum = 0;
			 count = 0;

			 Msqm = A - 2.5*log10(frequency); //Frequency to magnitudes/arcSecond2 formula

			 lcd.clear();
			 lcd.setCursor(0,0);
			 lcd.println("Mag/As2: ");
			 lcd.setCursor(9,0);
			 lcd.print(Msqm);
			 delay(5000);
			 lcd.clear();
			 reading = 0;
			 FreqMeasure.end();
		 }
		 }
	 }
}
}

[Gweedo]

That's excellent!

[Corpze]

Thanks

It´s now been calibrated too!

I did the calibration using the just released app "Dark Sky Pro" witch i had no idea that someone was working on when i started this project

That app has a error of 0.1 from the original Unihedron SQM, and to narrow that error down, i took five readings and averaged those out.

I then whent back to my coding and chenged the constant to 19, with this i was able to get so close so the individual readings was about 0.02 Mag / ArcSec2 from that

So now my job is done... for this time

BR/ Daniel

[garethmob]

i really like this idea, been thinking of a meter for a while but at £100 their quite expensive to do a short job

[Corpze]

Yep, my thoughts as well, and as i only gonna measure the sky to compare different photo-sites, i don´t need the scientific grade. But it is almost as good as the Unihedron one!

[Plutonium5793]

This is very cool. I am going to build one myself. Thank you for leading the way!

John

[MooMoo]

How much was the LCD shield?

[MooMoo]

They sell Arduinos in Maplin but I strongly don't recommend buying there, they add £10 on top of the Amazon prices.

Arduino should only cost about 17 GBP.

I am making a lightning detector using the Uno.

[OneEyedSam]

this is great, I was thinking of building something like this myself....

Do you think it would be feasible to set this up such that it sounded an alarm when the quality reached a certain value, ie to wake me up in my tent when the sky clears up

[skybadger]

Sorry  - I have to as  - do you mean the sgl_observatory_automation group ? The others that come back in a search off groups.yahoo.com don't seem to have any traffic worth mentioning.

cheers

Mike

[Gina]

Nice one

[SnakeyJ]

Hi Corpze and great project - a cheeky ask but would you have a logical layout or photo of the wired shield assembly.

Think you'll have some takers if you decide to distribute kits!

Thanks for posting - Jake

[manoss27]

Hi i try to find the HOYA FILTER CM500 but without any results until yet.....do you know any source for buying?

Friendly Manolis

[OneEyedSam]

Got an arduino on order, going to look into something similar, but also hooking up a cellular module to get text alerts from it...or send information to a twitter feed . Amazing what you can do for a few quis these days.

[Squagnut]

Excellent stuff - thanks

The sea monster mentioned in my sig is an arduino-based console which controls various peripheral devices and also reads a small array of sensors, returning data to an LCD and also to a desktop app I wrote. I have a few spare pins on the sensor side of it, so I'll see if I can incorporate this SQM into it all.

[kookoo_gr]

I am thinikng of making myself this projecy and i would like some info on how to calibrate the meter once it's done. Is there a practical way on how to certify the results i have at the meter? The app, dark sky meter is for iphone and my phone is android based.

[Corpze]

Hi.

I cheated a little bit and calibrated my sam with a iphone-app called DSM, Dark sky meter. But that app is supposed to be almost exactly as precise as the Unihedron.

If you use the same sensor, lens and IR/UV filter as i did, you can probably use the same const. float A= 22

With that i measured within one tenth of the app every time.

Perfrej on this forum has perfected this code even more, if there is a to bright sky, the code hangs for a few seconds and can leave traces of the measurements, this was my first C++ code ever so bare with me, he might even post the code here

PS. He is running this sqm-design (at least i think so) in his remote obs in southern france

[manoss27]

Corpze I found this filter from eBay http://m.ebay.com/itm/400460895364?nav=SEARCH and this lens http://m.ebay.com/itm/121192249295?txnId=1226081538002 my Problem is how to fit the filter with lens did you cut cycle the filter and put it into the lens.. any idea?

[perfrej]

Hi folks!

I have not yet implemented the SQM in Provence. The code in the FreqMeasure llibrary cannot hande the high frequencies that the sensor delivers during daylight, and the Arduino gets hung on a very low level. As soon as I have tested the new code, now using FreqCount instead, I will post it here and implement it in Provence. I cannot run any unreliable test code down there because the Arduino code runs the roos, the power distribution, the focuser and just about everything else.

I too would welcome some hints for lens mounting...

/per

[OneEyedSam]

I bought a couple of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141195310727?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Looks like with a little care they could be superglued to the sensor, although I haven't thought about it properly yet. As I am waiting for these to arrive before assembly.... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160619726385?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I also took a look at freqcount vs freqmeasue, but haven't yet recoded for freqcount. Need to do some trials, I'm not too concerned about performance in daylight hours.

I have now ordered a seimens tc35 for doing the mobile comms. On the hunt for a cheap SIM card

I'm using a arduino nano for size, so hoping I can get the code into 32k. So far I have the main sensing, serial comms and EEPROM functionality under 10k, so should be ok.

My first arduino project, so learning as. I go !

[OneEyedSam]

I hope to be able to send SMS text commands to the SQM to set alert thresholds, calibrate, and to adjust various parameters, such as polling frequencies. I need to tell it which phone number to send regular status messages to, and hopefully to ring my mobile to alert me if the reading reaches a certain level.

[OneEyedSam]

Oh, and so far this is how it looks...

[perfrej]

I bought a couple of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141195310727?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Looks like with a little care they could be superglued to the sensor, although I haven't thought about it properly yet. As I am waiting for these to arrive before assembly.... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160619726385?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I also took a look at freqcount vs freqmeasue, but haven't yet recoded for freqcount. Need to do some trials, I'm not too concerned about performance in daylight hours.

I have now ordered a seimens tc35 for doing the mobile comms. On the hunt for a cheap SIM card

I'm using a arduino nano for size, so hoping I can get the code into 32k. So far I have the main sensing, serial comms and EEPROM functionality under 10k, so should be ok.

My first arduino project, so learning as. I go !

The processor get stuck if it gets too light and the fact that it brown-out resets doesn't help as it imediately gets stuck again. Not a good way to go, folks...

/per

[OneEyedSam]

Per,

I guess like me you are only interested in night time sky quality.

Perhaps use a light sensitive resistor on an analogue input, and use that to know when to bypass freqmeasue logic during the day. You could even power the light to freq off a digital out pin, so you could effectively power down the sensor in the day. I did experiment using a light sens res and it did work but not as accurate as ts235, but I think it would be good for this purpose.

Hth

[OneEyedSam]

You could also put the sensor output through a decade counter, to reduce the output frequency. By a power of 2. Then just multiply the resultant freq in code