Astronomical data acquisition from ROSA – Remote Observatory Southern Alps

Running a remote-observatory requires various systems to monitor weather and sky. This is achieved at ROSA by a couple of sensors.
While the informational sensors are single-box, the vital sensors are redundant.

Monitoring data for wind speed, wind direction and precipitation amount is achieved by a Davis Weather Station, sky darkness is measured by an Unihedron Sky Quality Meter and seeing quality is reported by an SBIG seeing monitor. Brightness, cloud and rain conditions are measured by multiple AAG cloudwatchers connected to different PC’s sharing the data within the internal network.

A PTZ outside camera takes images of the individual observatories during day and night to monitor the environment. A Raspberry Pi  based allsky camera replaced the SBIG All Sky Camera. Thanks to WiFi connectivity, a different place could be choosen, which now offers a real 180° view allowing even better assessment of the sky conditions.

Raspberry Pi Allsky Camera

AAG Cloudwatcher

Outside Webcam – slider

0

1

2

3

4

Rosa Sky Quality

Davis Weather Station

Seeing Data

Have a look at the different pictures of the infrastructure at the site gallery