Weather and Sensor Station Public Observatory

[smitae]

Hi All,

For our Public Astronomical Observatory we created a TinkerForge setup.

WeatherStation;

- Masterbrick

- Ethernet Master extension

- Outdoor weather bricklet ( Outdoor Weather station & Temp/Sensor TH-6148 in the telescope Dome to check humidity and check dew point.)

- Temperature bricklet & Humidity bricklet (Indoor measurement control-room)

 

SensorStation;

- Masterbrick

- Ethernet Master extension

- Ambient light Sensor & UV Sensor under protecting dome to measure outside light and UV radiation

- Will be extended with Barometer bricklet and 4-digit LED

 

We have an small Centos based Server (Mini-PC; Intel Celeron, dual-core, 8GB mem, SSD) running the required processes;

- Java programs for WeatherStation and SensorStation which stores the data in standard txt-files.

- We use node-red to "tail"  the txt-files and store the data in an InfluxDB Database.

- Grafana Server is then used to expose the data via http.

We have a wall mounted TV and Raspberry PI which is running in kiosk mode and connects to the Grafana Server to show the data in some interesting graphs to the public.

 

The purpose of the setup is not just to show the weather and sensor data, but also to show the public how technology is used to gather data, use programming to do something interesting stuff with the data. Learn programming, learn technology, etc.

 

What other interesting things could we do or show with the Tikerforge components? Any nice ideas?

Needs to be interesting, needs to help people to get interested in technology, IT, programming, science and physics?

Some explanation of what we setup. We still need to add some better pictures of the TinkerForge setup.

 

 

[Superp]

Very nice project! I like how you installed the electronics behind a transparent panel.

On 2/1/2020 at 8:58 PM, smitae said:

Ambient light Sensor & UV Sensor under protecting dome to measure outside light and UV radiation

I am looking for something similar: a weatherproof case or housing that does not block too much light/UV. Can you share some more information about the dome you are using and the way you installed it? A picture maybe? Do you compensate your measurements somehow for light blocked by the dome?

Thanks for any info you can share.

[seismicvibrations]

On 12/11/2020 at 3:41 PM, Superp said:

Very nice project! I like how you installed the electronics behind a transparent panel.

I am looking for something similar: a weatherproof case or housing that does not block too much light/UV. Can you share some more information about the dome you are using and the way you installed it? A picture maybe? Do you compensate your measurements somehow for light blocked by the dome?

Thanks for any info you can share.

Hello there. I have the same comment as Superp. Would you mind sharing what you use for a protective dome? I am interested in setting up an "upgraded" weather station as well.

Thanks.

[Superp]

I have a suspicion smitae is no longer following. In the meantime, I have some experiences with the Outdoor Weather Bricklet which may be useful to others:

• The TH-6148 Temperature/Humidity Sensor can be mounted outdoors as it is, but I wanted an enclosure for extra protection against rough weather. The TFA Dostmann Schutzhülle (article 98.1114.02) is a perfect fit. Without the mounting bracket, the sensor fits snugly inside the enclosure.
• I also found the TFA Dostmann Thermo-Hygrometer mit Sender 433 MHz für TFA GAIA (article 30.3166) a perfect replacement for the Tinkerforge sensor. It looks identical and has the same dimensions, and also fits in the enclosure. I use a combination of three sensors, one Tinkerforge TH-6148 and two this TFA Dostmann sensor, to transmit data to the same Bricklet, and it works fine.

Still looking for a transparent dome though.

[smitae]

Sorry, did indeed not really follow it anymore. But I am back now :-)

The transparent dome I ordered via Ali a few years ago. And I still need to do some measurements how much UV is blocked. Not sure how to do that, as I do have a standard UV source I could use.

We want to add more Ambient Light sensors around or observatory. And upgrade the UV sensor to the 2.0 version. Also we want to measure the sky temperature at night with an IR sensor. Not sure how to do that at the moment.

bearbeitet January 20, 2024 at 19:00 von smitae

[Superp]

On 12/11/2020 at 3:41 PM, Superp said:

Can you share some more information about the dome you are using and the way you installed it? A picture maybe?

Good to see you're back. So...what can you tell us about the dome? What is it made of? How big is it? How is it sealed? How did you mount it?