This is a complete weather monitoring system that comprises

Lunatico AAG Cloudwatcher Sensor, Anemometer, Mounting Bracket and Solo Standalone computer at a special price

Cloudwatcher

The AAG CloudWatcher is a complete weather detection system and comprises:

A box with a special exterior finish that includes 4 sensors that are shown in the accompanying AAG Cloudwatcher Software through their corresponding graphs. They allow a thorough and easily understandable measurement of atmospheric conditions:PLEASE NOTE! The photos of the Cloudwatcher give the impression of poor finish around the sensors. This is misleading. These sensors are heavily protected with sealants to ensure long life and consistant operation is all weather conditions

Cloud sensor

Rain sensor

Humidity sensor

Light sensor

Temperature sensor

and the Anemometer for wind speed.

Supplied with the Cloudwatcher is a weatherproof cable with IP68 connector. This is used to connect the AAG Cloudwatcher to your PC (or standalone 'Solo' Cloudwatcher computer), 12V/1A Power source and a relay.

The Cloudwatcher software allows you to setup your own parameters for what constitutes an unsafe condition. When this condition is met the Cloudwatcher software will notify relevant imaging applications with safety monitors. These in turn will perform required safety actions. The standalone Solo Cloudwatcher computer allows monitoring of the Cloudwatcher without requiring the main PC to be turned on. However when it is, the PC can monitor the Cloudwatcher as if the software were running on it natively. A further notification of unsafe conditions comes with the Cloudwatchers relay output which is closed when the unsafe condition is met. If this is connected to devices such as a Lunatico Dragonfly or Talon Observatory system, various fucntions can be carried out. The Dragonfly can activate other relays based on the signal (it could for instance loop through to the Talon) and also run scripts to perform functions within applications such as warming up a CCD camera before shutting it down.

For any kind of unattended imaging whether it is an observatory at the end of your garden or a remote system at a place like E-Eye, the cloudwatcher is an essential piece of equipment.

Anemometer

The Anemometer is designed to be partnered with the Lunatico AAG Cloudwatcher to add wind speed measurements to Cloudwatcher data. This is essential where equipment or your observatory may be prone to damage through high winds or simply the ingress of dirt or debris into an open oberseratory.

Bracket

The wall bracket allows easy mounting of the Cloudwatcher sensor and Anemometer to either a wall or mast of 1.25"-1.5" diameter. The bracket is supplied with all fixings to mount the sensors and comes supplied with U bolts for mast fixing. No fixings are supplied for wall mounting as these should be detirmined according to the surface you are mounting to.

Solo

Solo is a tiny computer customized to control your Cloudwatcher system 7 days a week 24 hours a day.

It features the following;

It has very low power requirements of less than 2W. It is ideal for remote observatories having an integrated web server, so you can check your observatory's weather from any part of the world. The information read from the AAG Cloudwatcher is made available to any computer on the same network, so you can use the Cloudwatcher application that is on your imaging PC 'Remote' mode, to listen to the Cloudwatcher status that is fed to the Solo. This then allows programs with safety monitors to react as required to unsafe events. When the PC is shutdown, Solo keeps the Cloudwatcher active and allows you to continue to monitor the weather. Needless to say if your PC suffers a crash or other failure, unsafe signals from the Cloudwatcher can still be monitored as the Solo keeps the Cloudwatcher operationg independently. The relay signal if connected to a Dragonfly or Talon will close the roof / dome and put the mount into park.

The Solo is a very useful add-on to the Cloudwatcher weather monitoring system, and while not necessary to make it work, allows for very useful redundancy. We recommend its use in all remote installations.

The Unihedron SQM-L is identical to the USB and ethernet versions of this popular Sky Quality Meter, being fitted with a lens to allow reading of a narrow field of view.

Uses:

• Find out how good the night or site REALLY is.
• Compare the sky brightness at different sites quantitatively.
• Document the evolution of light pollution in your area.
• Set planetarium dome illumination to mimic the skies people are likely to experience elsewhere in the city.
• Monitor sky brightness through the night, night-to-night, and year-to-year.
• Determine which nights show the greatest promise for finding the 'faintest fuzzies'!
• Calibrate the effect of sky brightness on qualitative measures such as the Bortle Scale.
• Investigate how sky brightness correlates with the solar cycle and month-to-month sunspot activity.
• Help provide local ground truth for future sky brightness prediction with the Clear Sky Clock.
• CCD users can make a correlation between the SQM reading and when the background reaches a specific ADC level.

Features:

• Audible signal while measurement is in progress.
• Sky brightness displayed in visual magnitudes per square arcsecond.
• Infrared blocking filter restricts measurement to visual bandpass.
• Temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit as well as model number and serial number can be displayed with different button press sequence.
• Precision readings at even the darkest sites.
• Power-saving features designed in for maximum battery life.
• Reverse battery protection.

Specifications:

• Operates using 9V PP3 style battery (included)
• Included applications for reading data in Java, C, Perl, Python.
• The Half Width Half Maximum (HWHM) of the angular sensitivity is ~10°. The Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) is then ~20°. The sensitivity to a point source ~19° off-axis is a factor of 10 lower than on-axis. A point source ~20° and ~40° off-axis would register 3.0 and 5.0 magnitudes fainter, respectively.
• Size 3.6" (91.44mm) x 2.6" (66.04mm) x 1.1" (27.94mm)
• Maximum light sampling time: 80 seconds.
• Minimum light sampling time: 1 seconds.
• Specifications are subject to change without notice.

The Unihedron SQM-LU is the USB version of this popular Sky Quality Meter. It is supplied with a 5m USB cable for virtual plug and play operation.

Software supplied with the SQM-LU allows it to be easily configured. The free SQM Reader software provides realtime measurement of sky brightness.

Uses:

• Find out how good the night or site REALLY is.
• Compare the sky brightness at different sites quantitatively.
• Document the evolution of light pollution in your area.
• Set planetarium dome illumination to mimic the skies people are likely to experience elsewhere in the city.
• Monitor sky brightness through the night, night-to-night, and year-to-year.
• Determine which nights show the greatest promise for finding the 'faintest fuzzies'!
• Calibrate the effect of sky brightness on qualitative measures such as the Bortle Scale.
• Investigate how sky brightness correlates with the solar cycle and month-to-month sunspot activity.
• Help provide local ground truth for future sky brightness prediction with the Clear Sky Clock.
• CCD users can make a correlation between the SQM reading and when the background reaches a specific ADC level.

Features:

• Sky brightness reported in visual magnitudes per square arcsecond.
• Infrared blocking filter restricts measurement to visual bandpass.
• Sensor temperature, model number, and serial number are provided.
• Precision readings at even the darkest sites.
• Field-upgradeable firmware
• Open protocol document

Specifications:

• USB 2.0 connectivity
• Included applications for reading data in Java, C, Perl, Python.
• The Half Width Half Maximum (HWHM) of the angular sensitivity is ~10°. The Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) is then ~20°. The sensitivity to a point source ~19° off-axis is a factor of 10 lower than on-axis. A point source ~20° and ~40° off-axis would register 3.0 and 5.0 magnitudes fainter, respectively.
• Size 3.6" (91.44mm) x 2.6" (66.04mm) x 1.1" (27.94mm)
• Maximum light sampling time: 80 seconds.
• Minimum light sampling time: 1 seconds.
• Specifications are subject to change without notice.

The Unihedron SQM-LE is an ethernet enabled version of this popular Sky Quality Meter. It is supplied with cables and PSU to allow it to connected simply to an existing wired network. It can in addition be connected directly to a computer with the supplied cross-over cable, thus allowing easy use within an observatory if the observatory PC is connected via Wi-Fi.

Software supplied with the SQM-LE allows it to be easily dicovered on a network and configured. The free SQM Reader software provides realtime measurement of sky brightness.

Uses:

• Find out how good the night or site REALLY is.
• Compare the sky brightness at different sites quantitatively.
• Document the evolution of light pollution in your area.
• Set planetarium dome illumination to mimic the skies people are likely to experience elsewhere in the city.
• Monitor sky brightness through the night, night-to-night, and year-to-year.
• Determine which nights show the greatest promise for finding the 'faintest fuzzies'!
• Calibrate the effect of sky brightness on qualitative measures such as the Bortle Scale.
• Investigate how sky brightness correlates with the solar cycle and month-to-month sunspot activity.
• Help provide local ground truth for future sky brightness prediction with the Clear Sky Clock.
• CCD users can make a correlation between the SQM reading and when the background reaches a specific ADC level.

Features:

• Sky brightness reported in visual magnitudes per square arcsecond.
• Infrared blocking filter restricts measurement to visual bandpass.
• Sensor temperature, model number, and serial number are provided.
• Precision readings at even the darkest sites.
• Field-upgradeable firmware
• Open protocol document

Specifications:

• Ethernet connectivity
• Included applications for reading data in Java, C, Perl, Python.
• The Half Width Half Maximum (HWHM) of the angular sensitivity is ~10°. The Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) is then ~20°. The sensitivity to a point source ~19° off-axis is a factor of 10 lower than on-axis. A point source ~20° and ~40° off-axis would register 3.0 and 5.0 magnitudes fainter, respectively.
• Operates from 5-6VDC adapter (included).
• Size 3.6" (91.44mm) x 2.6" (66.04mm) x 1.1" (27.94mm)
• Maximum light sampling time: 80 seconds.
• Minimum light sampling time: 1 seconds.
• Specifications are subject to change without notice.