Blue Astro Stickstation USB Weather Station

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Hi All,

After doing the customary search, I was unable to find any posts relating to the more portable Blue Astro Stickstation USB Weather Station.

While I have been able to source it overseas, it costs the usual bomb to ship to Australia and I was wondering if anyone knew of a local (Australian) distributor?

Alternatively, does anyone know of a similar portable USB weather station? I don't have an Obs, this is something to take with us when heading to dark sites and to hook up to SGP.

Pete

[RobF (Rob)]

Hi Peter

I was so close to buying one of those, but in the end balked at the expense. Once you get to know your scope's temp/focus characteristics you can do a pretty good job setting filter or time delays in SGP rather than temp adjustments anyway.

In the end I bought one of the cheap temperHum devices off ebay, very aware it wouldn't work with latest SGP, but "just to see".

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TEMPerHUM-PC-Notebook-USB-Sensor-Thermometer-Temperature-Data-Logger-Recorder-/152318823468?hash=item2376e8cc2c


Very pleased with it to be honest. Have it plugged into the USB hub on my scope. Does a great job of graphing and showing in realtime temp and humidity through out the evening, along with dewpoint. Values seem pretty close to local weather reports and my old thermometer. Have heard they can be variable between devices (like chinese EQ mounts )

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Thanks Rob,

A good alternative (and price!). Appreciate the heads up. I seem to recall there might have been a feature request on the Mainsequence Forum asking if a broader range of USB weather stations could be included.

Thanks mate,

Pete

[RobF (Rob)]

I believe the SGP guys are programming the latest ASCOM weather interfaces, rather than trying to cater individually for every single hardware device and driver. The Temperhums are notorious for having little "mutations" in their drivers all the time which they felt was wasting a lot of their time too, IIRC.

Still, even outside SGP, the temp and humidity functions are nice, especially on cold dewy nights.

The blue astro stickstation is supposed to be a nice bit of gear, so not putting them down in any way. No experience to allow me to comment on them though.

[Pogo (Martin)]

Hi all

If I may chime in here.... I am the manufacturer of something similar to the Stickstation. My product, called MBox, delivers Temperature, Pressure, Humidity and Dewpoint and has an ASCOM Driver too, so it's compatible with all astro software that supports ASCOM Version 6.2 or newer.
There's also a version available that includes GPS information, to have a "all in one" device.

You can find more information here:
http://www.astromi.ch

Best regards
Martin
P.S: I hope I am allowed to make this sort of post...

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Thanks All and much appreciated.

Martin, I did take a look at your product and it looks terrific. The issue for Aussies is always in the large exchange rate - it really puts a dampener on buying overseas.

Pete

[luka]

I don't want to hijack the thread but I just wanted to thank Rob for the link to TemperHum devices. I was planing to build something like that for a while but this fits the bill almost perfectly.

Also, TemperHum devices are supported by APT and by SGP (legacy device support only). However, read the information in the link before buying one.

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Not hijacked at all Luka (nice to see a fellow Perth member - NOR?).

I did the same and purchased one. Just waiting for it to arrive.

[luka]

Hi Peter, yes I am in Perth North, about 5km as the crow flies from city, in the middle of the light pollution :-(

Considering nobody did it yet, I may write the ASCOM driver once the device arrives. This may simplify things with SGP???

[technofetishism (Nick)]

Didnt production and development end on the Blue Astro StickStations after Per Frejvall died last year. I know that Deep Space Products now recommend the MBox/MGBox that Pogo up there develops (especially for 10micron mounts)

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

I think an ASCOM driver would be very much welcomed by the community and greatly appreciated!

@techno, yes I'd heard the same thing and I like the look of Pogo's product (but the cost is a little prohibitive for Australians with the exchange rate).

[technofetishism (Nick)]

yeah there not cheap but im seriously contemplating the MGBox personally

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Would be good to hear what you think when it arrives.

[RobF (Rob)]

Interesting updates guys. Shame if the blue astro guru is no longer with us.
It would be so good to have an ASCOM interface Luka if inter-device variability isn't too much of an issue. Thanks for looking at it.

I'll have to check legacy support too under SGP in the meantime.

[luka]

I looked at the ASCOM ObservingConditions driver template and it is trivial compared to the camera interface I am doing for our self-build camera. Once I get the device I will definitely have a go at it. Also, once open-sourced people can modify it to include the device they have.

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by luka

I looked at the ASCOM ObservingConditions driver template and it is trivial compared to the camera interface I am doing for our self-build camera. Once I get the device I will definitely have a go at it. Also, once open-sourced people can modify it to include the device they have.

Cool. Will be interested to hear how you go

[luka]

Don't worry, I will get back to you when I need guinea pigs for testing the driver

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Happy to help mate.

[sil (Steve)]

For anyone interested that temperature/humidity gadget is dead easy to knock up with a small Arduino. there are several temp/hum sensors avaiilable for under $5 and they are very accurate from my testing, especially if you throw in some reading averaging and make sure you dont poll the sensor too many times in rapid succession. I built my own laptimer for initially timing my robots doing line following (testing quality of code changes) and set up my own Le Sarthe circuit, and I expanded it to be usable for a single RC car plus what else would a racing track need but track conditions so I threw in the temp/hum sensor just because. dead easy and tons of online help for readinga sensor with an arduino, hardest part is adding the lcd display, but there are user friendly solutions here too. No soldering needed and coding can be as simple as copy/paste from a tutorial (or download their code package.)

Anyway Arduino is a great way to get into coding and electronics and its sooooooo simple and worth playing with. I've got a few gps options coming this week for my next gadget thing. You could use a few ultrasonic sensors to light up red led stripes down tripod legs if someone approaches too close in the dark, or wave your hand to get a red light to read by and show current location/weather data etc. If you can imagine it,someone has probably got a tutorial to start you off.

[LaughingBeagles (Peter)]

Hi Sil,

If I had the time, I would give that a go but to be honest, when not doing this, I am trying to catch up on the list of chores on the fridge...