[jamespierce (James)]

You must have a cloud detector (they also detect rain, wind and humidity)
You should have an all sky camera
You might like to have an SQM

There are a few cloud sensors out there, the AAG, Sky Alert and Boltwood II - I read everything I could and found the Boltwood was used by many professional observatories as well as many of the biggest remote hosting providers. If there is one component that must be 100% reliable it’s your cloud detector. So far it’s worked just fine, but it’s certainly very expensive for what it is. One draw for me is it was specifically listed as compatible with the ScopeDome hardware shutdown trigger.

Once I decided to go with the Boltwood for weather, I chose to match it up with an SBIG 340m also from diffraction limited - It’s a very old, terrible quality but very reliable all sky camera. Again used all over the world. They are now discontinued and will be replaced with a more modern camera. About time. I had a very frustrating intermitted fault with this camera which turned to to be related to the computer, not the camera but every time it crashed it was a reminder how useful an all sky camera is.

I have an SQM-LE sky quality meter. This was fairly cheap and it’s quite useful to judge when conditions are marginal, thin high cloud that doesn’t show clearly on the camera can be confirmed with the cloud sensor and the SQM combined. It also shows the clear impact of the moon. After testing I mounted all three detectors onto a pipe which I concreted into the ground a few meters away from the dome with all the cables run under ground in some PVC pipe back to the dome.

If I did it again I’d seriously look at the Sky Alert cloud sensor and would definitely buy a different all sky camera though I’m not quite sure what. They are all overpriced for what they are, but we also demand they work day and night in the sun and rain for 10 years.