Navigation: Deep-Sky Planner Help > Equipment/Observer Menu >

Weather Devices

Deep-Sky Planner can acquire readings from weather devices through their ASCOM drivers. You should consult your weather device documentation to configure the device.

You can use the Weather Devices function to keep a list of weather device configurations in Deep-Sky Planner, test communications with each, and select one for use in the product (the Favorite). The dialog box is composed of a browsing pane on the left and a property viewing/editing pane on the right. A communication status pane appears at the bottom of the window. The tool bar provides access to all device configuration functions.

Tool Bar

New initializes the property pane for a new device and enables editing.

Edit initializes the property pane for the selected device and enables editing.

Delete removes the selected device from the database. You are warned before the device is actually deleted.

Favorite toggles the 'favorite' status for the selected device.
Important: A weather device must be selected as Favorite to be used elsewhere in Deep-Sky Planner. Note that only one device can be selected as Favorite at a time.

Test attempts to communicate with the selected weather device. Results of the test are displayed in Communication Result.

Help opens this help topic.

Browsing Pane

Device Name shows a list of weather devices defined in the database. Select an entry to delete, edit or view its properties. Double-clicking a device opens it in the property pane for editing.

Property Pane

Setup allows you to configure the device communications parameters in the ASCOM driver. Click it to open the ASCOM Observing Conditions Chooser dialog box.

Device Name shows the name of the weather device driver as defined in ASCOM. It identifies the weather device within Deep-Sky Planner.

Read Delay allows you to specify how long Deep-Sky Planner will wait for a weather device to respond after a connection is established. It is device dependent, so you should consult the device manufacturer for this value.

Note: Deep-Sky Planner has been tested with the Astromi.ch MBox. When a client program such as Deep-Sky Planner opens a connection to a devices, it may take a few seconds to stablize and provide accurate data. Read Delay instructs Deep-Sky Planner to wait while the device stablizes. You may have to experiment with Read Delay to find the right value. In-house testing has yielded some recommended values shown below.

Device	Read Delay
Astromi.ch MBox	4
Boltwood File Service	0
OpenWeatherMap Service	0

Note: If your weather device is showing invalid data, you may need to stop Deep-Sky Planner and restart it. This is a requirement of some ASCOM device drivers, not Deep-Sky Planner. Make sure the weather device is connected to an available port and restart Deep-Sky Planner.

Equipment Bar Weather Device Read Interval (min) allows you to choose how often the weather device is read and its data displayed on the Equipment/Conditions Bar. Select None to disable automatic reading of the weather device.

Save stores changes and returns to browsing.

Cancel discards the changes, disables editing and returns to browsing.

Communication Status Pane

Communication Result contains a message describing the latest attempt to communicate with the selected weather device.

Clear erases the message in Communication Result.

MBox is a product of Astromi.ch. Knightware thanks Martin Ingold for his kind assistance while developing support for MBox
Stickstation is a product of BlueAstro. Knightware thanks Per Frejvall posthumously for his kind assistance while developing support for Stickstation.