LOOP Packet Augmentation with Almanac Data

[Karen K]

Several skins offer live data update out of LOOP packet data. Some almanac data like azimuth and altitude change fast, too, but $almanac tags are not included there and can be used in page templates only. The Live Data Service of the weewx-sykfield-almanac extension addresses this problem. It augments the LOOP packets by actually calculated almanac values of the Sun and - if configured so - other heavenly bodies.

You can also add those data as columns to the database and then display them in diagrams together with other observation types like temperature etc.

An example you see on our PV page ("Sonnenverlauf" = solarPath, "Sonnenrichtung" = solarAzimuth, "Sonnenhöhe" = solarAltitude). If you look some seconds at the values you see them change. A diagram you find there, too.

This may be especially interesting to skin authors, but if the skin is configurable, users can add those values, too. For example, for the Belchertown skin, you could add solarAltitude and/or solarAzimuth to the list of the station_observations key in skin.conf to show the values. Please make sure they are included in MQTT output, too.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Definitely a feature for upcoming versions of the bootstrap skin.

[Karen K]

I added some extra documentation regarding that feature.

[Karen K]

I added Sun and Moon distance to the LOOP packets according to the request in issue #24.