Cheap cloud sensor - any interest?

[Andre Germain]

Query to the cloud sensing public and to Bob Denny which I found out today invented ASCOM, found in Wikipedia no less!

Query: we're not all blessed with New Mexico's many clear nights. New England, Montreal, UK, clouds are often blotting out some or part of our night skies. But 'some'? Often 30 to 70% of the sky is clear of clouds, sure they move, but what if a detector could map out the local cloud layer in a minute? It would be a snap to say use a Wifi connected ESP controller NodeMCU (5$), three mini servos (4$ each, azimuth, altitude, rain cover) and a Melexis thermopile (20$ 10 deg FOV with barrel) to sweep it and send the data to a NAS, over MQTT, or other. This thermographic device could provide the data to ACP. So Bob, and yes there are many cost driven layers to this, and the complexity to ACP is an order of magnitude more than the horizon file for instance, but some of us would add more images throughout a year. It would be a sort of lucky imaging scheme - the detector could predict the movement of the 'cells' further enhancing the imaging windowing.

Ah well.. at the very least I'm adding to this thread's record.