cloud-rain-monitor

An Arduino firmware, Raspberry PI application and indi-driver for a device to measure rain and cloud cover for an astronomical observatory. Cloud cover is determined by measuring the difference between ambient temperature and sky temperature.

Outside

Inside

The device offers an HTTP interface to GET current conditions. See below for the full API

Example request to /weather

{
    "outsideTemp": 2.75, 
    "skyTemp": -21.77, 
    "readingTimestamp": 
    "2018-03-25 18:02:46", 
    "rain": false
}

Clouds are detected using an Melexis MLX90614 sensor to measure IR radiation from the sky.

Rain is detected using an RG-11 rain sensor

An Indi Driver for observatory automation is also included.

The device and driver is currently used in Ballyhoura Observatory

Build notes/instructions

• 1 Flash the ino file to an arduino nano.

• 2 Wiring diagram (in progress)

• 3 Clone this repo to raspberry pi then add a line to /etc/rc.local to start the weather micro service on startup

# start the weatherstation
/home/pi/code/github/cloud-rain-monitor/device/rpi/web/weatherMicroService.py &

HTTP API

Current weather status

• URL

  /weather/current

• Method:

  GET

• Success Response:

  • Code: 200
    Content: {"outsideTemp": 2.75, "skyTemp": -21.77, "readingTimestamp": "2018-03-25 18:02:46", "rain": false}

Historical weather

Returns history for the previous 24 hours

• URL

  /weather/history

• Method:

  GET

• Success Response:

  • Code: 200
    Content: [{"outsideTemp": 2.75, "skyTemp": -21.77, "readingTimestamp": "2018-03-25 18:02:46", "rain": false}, {"outsideTemp": 2.75, "skyTemp": -21.77, "readingTimestamp": "2018-03-25 18:02:46", "rain": false}....]

Charts

Returns an image weather chart

• URL

  /weather/chart/

• Method:

  GET

• URL Params

  Required:

  <chart>

  Valid values are 'cloud.png' and 'temperature.png'

• Sample Call:

  http://192.168.2.227:8080/weather/chart/cloud.png

• Success Response:

  • Code: 200
    Content: