Dear Author,

in order to proceed with the review process of your manuscript, and to avoid patent infringement and concealment of anteriority, I would require the two following modifications:

1.) p.3 line 27 present Sky Insight as an industrial product and cite the patent
The patent can be cited in reference as follow:
Bertin C., Cros S., Schmutz N., Liandrat O., Nicolas S., Lalire S., Detection unit and method for identifying and monitoring clouds in an observed area of the sky. Patent number FR3026496, WO2016046309, 2014-09-26.

2.) Section 2.1.1 p.7, an explicit mention in the text should express that the cloud detection algorithm is based on a similar approach as the one of Bertin et al., 2015:
Bertin C., Cros S., Saint-Antonin L., Schmutz N., "Prediction of optical communication link availability: real-time observation of cloud patterns using a ground-based thermal infrared camera", Proc. SPIE 9641, Optics in Atmospheric Propagation and Adaptive Systems XVIII, 96410A (8 October 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2194920

You may decide to submit a revised version of the manuscript after having included the above changes and taking into account the referee report.

Best regards, Manfred Wendisch

Dear author,
I kindly ask you to consider both reviews of your revised manuscript version. After submitting a further revised version including a point-by-point discussion of tzhe reviewer comments I will probably send your manuscript back to one of the reviewers.
Best regards,
Manfred Wendisch