Do you have the Cloudwatcher on the RPi as well?

That's an interesting question. The IDE I use for CloudWatcher can build for R-Pi as well. In fact it's what I use for my R-Pi-based roof controller. So I'm pretty sure I could build a version quickly. But my past experience is that spacings and text sizes are not the same on macOS and Rasbian. I would have to change every one of them manually, and there are thousands of them ! Otherwise the quick working version would be unusable because it's illegible.

But I'll give it a try,

The other thing is that the macOS app is not free -- I have to cover the cost of the 99€ annual fee to remain an Apple developer somehow. But the R-Pi is a different ecosystem and, if I can find the time to do the port, it'll be free for R-Pi.

There is already a CloudWatcher AAG INDI driver for RPi, so it should be OK.

If it doesn't work, I'd like to know before I go down that route!!

If you're able to give it a spin, I'd love to know.

Kind regards

Steve.

There is already a CloudWatcher AAG INDI driver for RPi

I know there is, but (a) it doesn't support the new SQM ability, (b) it needs a direct connection (serial via USB) to the R-Pi. This is fine if you have no other use for the CloudWatcher.

But the native (Windows) CloudWatcher app, and my macOS one, both support remote use via a dedicated transfer file, and they use the same transfer file so can interoperate. So you can have a Master version running in the observatory and a client running in your office, and the client(s) can have independent parameter setting so, for example can respond to different thresholds. They also both generate a range of additional files like the ClarityII (Boltwood) format files.

In fact I will test the R-Pi function exactly in this remote/client setup.

So I want to keep my CloudWatcher hardware with its present connections and that's why I want to write an INDI driver which uses the JSON file instead.

It turned out to be much more work than I expected to get the R-Pi version working. CloudWatcher on the Mac uses scripting for many features which, in an INDI environment, will be handled directly by a client. So I've stripped them out, which removes a potential major headache oil porting.
But, it's been in development for well over a decade and uses various things which are now defunct, or were never available on R-Pi (these are mostly to do with preferences, of which there are hundreds). So I've had to rewrite quite large bits of it. Now it's working, but it still has the GUI peculiarities which will need tuning and adjustment. So, a work in progress, but, there is progress !

Hi Richard,

That sounds great. I have the Weather Radio Arduino bit working perfectly. The Json seems fine, the INDI client connects and recognises it, but Ekos doesn't seem to collect any data. I don't really understand what's going on.

I'm going to send you a PM.

Kind regards

Steve.

I'm following up on a call with Stephen following his PM. I'm attaching a couple of PDF files which show the connection between various things in the observatory, and the equivalent in my office/workshop where most of the hardware is emulated with either duplicated or representative hardware. The CloudWatcher hardware is on the top row and feeds a local computer (a Mac mini) via a USB/RS232 converter and, as well as displaying results locally, outputs a range of transfer files:

• a binary file (identical to the file used by Lunatico in their Windows software) which enables remote instances of CloudWatcher, including the R-Pi version I'm now working on.
• a file in the same format as the ClarityII file produced by the Boltwood sensor (extended to include SQM value)
• a JSON file with current values
• a rolling file containing selected values covering the last 24 hours
• an archive file appending current values to all historical values

This is why I'm reluctant to use the dedicated INDI driver for CloudWatcher and would prefer to develop a driver to read the JSON file.

Hi Richard,

Very cool. The attitude sensor, what is that? Does it work out the tilt of your scope?

How much of this can you link into INDI?

Kind regards

Steve.

The attitude sensors measure the attitude, essentially pitch (altitude) and roll (hour angle), or something equivalent. There is a unique combination of the two which indicates a safe park position, and that is what is checked in the Pi-Box software.

All of the items in the purple-coloured boxes are already linked. The ones in the paler purple are on my list of drivers/connections to make. The Pi-Box stuff is all linked via my version of the rolloff.ino driver, except I need to extend it a bit to handle the emergency and safety stop responses.

Cheers,
Richard

I haven't said until now is why the items in the file interfaces (seeing, SQM/darkness and weather/clouds) are interesting. You asked during the call. It's because I would like to find a way to include them in the FITS headers to help in weighting or eliminating images during processing in PixInsight.

There is so much information on weather, it would really be nice to have another tab in Ekos to store the readings, don't you think?

I wonder if we can suggest it as a proposal.

Kind regards

Steve.

I completely agree !
As well as the FITS header it would be good to see it in the analysis tab (maybe it is, but I didn't notice if it is).

What I do notice is that when the weather is degrading things like the guiding and star flux deteriorate, but it would be good to see the potential cause of this there too.

Cheers,
Richard

Done:

New weather Tab in Ekos