Astronomy on Chris Ramsay

Cloud Detection - Part Five

Sat, 16 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0100

This post follows on at quite a distance from my last post on the subject, and until recently I had not realised quite how long this project has been languishing on the bench. Like many of the electronics projects I undertake they need to be able to withstand being outside and exposed to weather conditions,…

Fun with the Sun and PyEphem

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I have a play with PyEphem and our local star, both as an opportunity to draw some pretty graphs and answer a few basic astronomy related questions, such as: what does the equation of time look like and is there a difference in the time it takes for the sun to set during the year.

Cloud Detection - Part Four

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0100

This post follows on quite quickly (for me at least!) from my last one regarding my latest tests and reflections on environmental issues with some thoughts about how to measure ground temperatures in a reliable way. I am also going to take a look at the difficulties I might face in trying to automatically interpret…

Cloud Detection - Part Three

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Since the last part in this series I have continued to conduct experiments comparing and contrasting the two variants of MLX90614, the wide field of view BAA and the considerably more focused BCF. Whilst undertaking these ‘in the field’ tests I have also come up against a few, what you might call, environmental problems which…

Cloud Detection - Part Two

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is the next installment on the cloud detection project. This time I am starting to test out hooking up an MLX90614 or two to an Arduino and try out pointing it to the sky in the aim of get some interesting results.

Cloud Detection - Part One

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This project has its roots in a discussion I had a while back with a friend who is a keen amateur astronomer. He had been complaining to me about how he thought that there was a distinct lack of cloud free nights in our corner of Northern Lincolnshire. In fact, he suggested, the weather was…