We'd like to monitor temperature of the camera system, to allow downstream compensation for gain variation in A/D converter .
There exist both standalone and USB interface temp sensors.
Here is a link for Python code to read out one of these devices: http://neon-society-electronics.com/?p=44
Another good resource for Python-based data collection options: http://python-in-the-lab.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html