INDI weather station

[wimvb]

For quite some time now I've been working on a small weather station. The idea is to add automation to an obsy I'm building. The weather station as is measures temperature, humidity, pressure and presence of cloud. I also have the components to build a rain detector, but haven't implemented that yet.

First the box:

Made from vent covers and pieces of aluminium

All put together

With sensors. The IR sensor is in the far back (top of the housing) and the BME280 sensor is the free hanging red pcb. The other pcb holds a few pull-up resistors and a capacitor for the I2C wires. Insulation added to keep critters out.

First I thought of using an Arduino to control and collect the data, but recently I started tinkering with ESP32 wifi boards. These are a lot faster and have more memory than Arduinos, and I wanted to use microPython.

The ESP32 board is also smaller than an Arduino UNO (about the size of an Arduino nano) and has built in wifi, which means I just need power to the device.

I uploaded the code to GitHub

https://github.com/wberlo/indi_meteostation

Output is as a HTML file (index.html) which presents data in a simple way. The INDI driver 'Weather Watcher' can read this file.

For now, temperature is mapped to temperature (of course), and 'clouds' is mapped to 'forecast/Weather' in INDI. 'Clouds' is a parameter that varies from 0 to 1. I used the same criteria as the AAG Cloud Watcher device: if sky temperature is less than -8 degrees, the sky is assumed cloud free. For a sky temperature between -8 and 0 degrees, there is partial cloud, and for a sky temperature higher than 0 degrees, the sky is overcast. This seems very arbitrary, and I expect to have to adjust this piece of code later.

Major update:

The weather station now also reads and reports the SQM values from my wifi-SQM. 😋 See further down this thread for details.

 

Edited December 6, 2019 by wimvb

[Firas]

Looks neat, Wim!

Is the light sensor calibrated now? 

[wimvb]

Thanks, Firas. Not yet calibrated. But that won't be much of a problem.

[Gina]

This is very interesting.  I was thinking of the possibility of something similar myself.

[wimvb]

It shouldn't be too difficult for you, Gina. You should probably also check out the updated Indiduino/Induino meteostation. The code is updated to use the BME280, mlx90614 and tsl2591. The latter for sqm. I'm currently also working on a sky quality meter using the tsl2591. Also with the esp32 board and microPython. 

[wimvb]

New feature added.

I changed the firmware of the meteostation so that it now can read the SQM values from my wifi SQM meter

 

The SQM value is written to the index.html file and reported together with other weather data. This means that the Weather Watcher in Ekos now will read this value also.

[JamesF]

My own weather station housing is not dissimilar in construction, though I made a timber frame and roof.  Buying pre-fabricated vents makes construction so much simpler.  At the moment all my instruments are 1-wire as I already had  them, though some are in need of repair -- the plastic of my AAG weather station has decayed somewhat in the sunlight.  For the time being I have painted it all with white gloss paint to try to give it a bit more life whilst I 3d-print new parts, though I have no option but to replace the wind direction vane as that has completely broken up.

So far I have temperature, air pressure, relative humidity and light intensity sensors working though I haven't moved the last one outside the screen as I haven't worked out how I'm going to protect it from the rain yet.  I've been looking at using weewx to capture the data, though there seems to be a fair bit to get my head around.

James

[wimvb]

3 minutes ago, JamesF said:

So far I have temperature, air pressure, relative humidity and light intensity sensors working though I haven't moved the last one outside the screen as I haven't worked out how I'm going to protect it from the rain yet.  I've been looking at using weewx to capture the data, though there seems to be a fair bit to get my head around.

I have the same: temperature, humidity, air pressure (and derived: dew point) from the Bosch BME280 environmental sensor. I also have temperature and sky temperature from the mlx90614 ir sensor, which will act as a cloud sensor. I get light readings from my SQM meter (also ESP32, but in a different case). I plan to mount the weather station outdoors (of course), and the SQM meter inside, so that it's only operational when the roof of my observatory is open. I won't need sky readings when I'm not doing any imaging, and the cloud sensor is enough to determine if I should open the obsy roof.

I have the components for a rain sensor, but so far haven't put those together yet. I first have to figure out where best to place it and if I should put a NiCr wire underneath to combat dew.

I must have a look at weewx, thanks for pointing that out.

[JamesF]

I shall certainly be stealing ideas for the SQM when I get that far :)

James

[wimvb]

42 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I shall certainly be stealing ideas for the SQM when I get that far

James

You're welcome 

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, JamesF said:

I've been looking at using weewx to capture the data

Weewx only seems to capture data from devices that are directly connected to it, not through wifi. 

[Gina]

I think it will be a little while before I get round to advancing my weather station project.  I have a queue of jobs and that's not at the top (yet).  I already have a lot of it done but Arduino + 1-wire based and I want to use RPi for remote operation and to tie in with my KStars/Ekos/INDI setup.  The latter runs all my imaging kit including (shortly) all sky camera and motorised ROR control.  I have a working logger for weather data and a 3D printed Stevenson screen.  Wind instruments are practically done too.   ATM the logger only logs data to an SD card and I would like to run a live weather web site like I did some years ago.  All the various parts want linking together.

[CedricTheBrave]

47 minutes ago, Gina said:

I think it will be a little while before I get round to advancing my weather station project.  I have a queue of jobs and that's not at the top (yet).  I already have a lot of it done but Arduino + 1-wire based and I want to use RPi for remote operation and to tie in with my KStars/Ekos/INDI setup.  The latter runs all my imaging kit including (shortly) all sky camera and motorised ROR control.  I have a working logger for weather data and a 3D printed Stevenson screen.  Wind instruments are practically done too.   ATM the logger only logs data to an SD card and I would like to run a live weather web site like I did some years ago.  All the various parts want linking together.

can you send me a copy of all that 😁😍😊🤞😜

[Gina]

I probably have copies of the various Arduino sketches and of my modified INDI drivers.  Should also have circuit diagrams etc.  Most of it can be found on here in various threads and blogs.  I post pretty much everything I do on here.  No doubt I can find anything specific.

[CedricTheBrave]

its ok Gina i was pulling your leg

i follow your posts with interest and use a lot of your stuff

BIG fan 

[Gina]

I guessed you were 😄  Glad you find some of it useful

[CedricTheBrave]

9 minutes ago, Gina said:

I guessed you were 😄  Glad you find some of it useful

i love the way this forum helps everyone its just so lovely

[Gina]

Yes indeed!

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

 I want to use RPi for remote operation and to tie in with my KStars/Ekos/INDI setup.  The latter runs all my imaging kit

....

All the various parts want linking together.

That's about where I am too. I use 2 Rock64s for the gear with INDI/Ekos. Now with having ASTAP for platesolving, this has become very powerful (blind solve in 6 secs on a Rock64), and I don't have to use Kstars on my laptop anymore. I just RDP directly into one of the Rocks. But having the weather station and SQM wireless, frees up usb and allows me to run them standalone. The next step for me is to get the weather station working with the Ekos observatory module the way I want it. In the mean time I also have a 64GB emmc module incoming that hopefully is faster and more reliable than the microSD card. 

[stash_old]

12 hours ago, wimvb said:

blind solve in 6 secs on a Rock64)

Really? - I dont get anyway near that using ASTAP  when "Blind" solving even on an I5 8gb 64bit SSD.

What do you mean by blind solving - e.g. so start 180 degree's for ra/dec coordinates with what FOV etc ?

Please share your parameters so all can benefit if possible 🙂 

[wimvb]

I loaded a fits image, and 6 secs later it hade a solution. I used standard settings in the indi simulator which is configured with my asi camera and skywatcher scope parameters. In all fairness, the target image wasn't very far from the park position of the scope, so that helped. I haven't tested it with my real mount and camera yet, so I don't know how it will perform in the field. Normally the solver won't need to do a blind solve, because it will use the scope position as a start in solving. 

Anyway, I'm satisfied with this feature. 

[JamesF]

I find plate-solving to be very quick when done locally.  I'm using the local astrometry implementation and it rarely takes more than a few seconds.  Obviously the field of view and general direction are known in that case though.

James

[wimvb]

I timed it just now again, from parked position. I used a previous capture of the Sunflower galaxy. It solved it in 7 seconds, but at the same time ASTAP failed to do the refinement solution with the ccd simulator. My local astrometry on the Rock64 took 13 seconds to solve the image from ccd simulator. I need more clear nights ...

[stash_old]

Sorry hijacked your thread  - but when you said "blind solve" in 6 secs I had to ask 😲 🙂  Mine take a lot longer (blind solving that is ) while "local" or Mount supplied platesolving takes 6secs or less using ASTAP - using real set up ,no simulations in sight - which I am satisfied with.

But real blind solving - load  image (without a RA/DEC - e.g. RAW CR2) ,mount at home position and solve takes a lot lot longer with ASTAP. Hence I thought you had a secret method.

Thanks for the info 🙂

[Gina]

I'm looking at this again - in between other projects.  I miss having a weather station!