Seeing Conditions: A Visual Examination

[cshahar]

The morning of the 4th of September afforded me an excellent opportunity to test different seeing conditions in one sitting. What made this day so special is that the seeing actually reached 5/5. This is a pretty rare occurrence in my neck of the woods. But the seeing also was sufficiently variable for me to record the gamut from 1 to 5. The bottom image in both sets is perhaps the best one I have ever taken, as the seeing reached 5/5 for the first time this year. This, of course, is a subjective analysis, but i find it instructive nonetheless. The reason i say this is because I often "settle" for 3/5 because better seeing is so occasional. Now I see what I am missing. Comments welcomed.

-Charles

Seeing: 1/5

Seeing: 2/5

Seeing: 3/5

Seeing: 4/5

Seeing: 5/5

Seeing: 1/5

Seeing: 2/5

Seeing: 3/5

Seeing: 4/5

Seeing: 5/5

[DHEB]

Very nice, thanks!

Just a question. Are we talking Antoniadi scale? In my world, the scale is from I (perfect) to V (very poor). You seem to have this reversed. Now, may be I am confused and had been in such a state for decades. Is it differnent when we do solar?

Cheers and clear skies with great seeing !

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting comparison. 

[Stu]

Very interesting, it really does show what you miss by having to operate in poor seeing.

I assume that the processing was identical throughout?

[Pete Presland]

Certainly a very interesting comparison, the last of the images is a stunner.

[Davey-T]

Thanks for taking the trouble Charles, from memory I think I've only ever had "perfect" seeing twice while actually imaging.

Dave

[Steve Ward]

Nice set , to be honest though I prefer #4 as #5 looks a tad 'over-cooked' and harsh to me , takes away the feeling of the soft gaseous nature of the subject... 

[Iainp]

Superb! You've surpassed yourself .

Iain 

[cshahar]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!

Just a question. Are we talking Antoniadi scale? In my world, the scale is from I (perfect) to V (very poor). You seem to have this reversed. Now, may be I am confused and had been in such a state for decades. Is it different when we do solar? I use the scale used by the meteorological office of Environment Canada to generate astronomical seeing maps, and it is the same that I have seen used by people in the US. It may be just a North American thing. I am not sure frankly. I wanted more to emphasize the differences between bad, good and excellent seeing.

I assume that the processing was identical throughout? It was exactly the same throughout Stu.

Nice set , to be honest though I prefer #4 as #5 looks a tad 'over-cooked' and harsh to me , takes away the feeling of the soft gaseous nature of the subject... Steve, I totally hear you. But since I kept the processing steps identical the excellent seeing image came out slightly over-sharpened. What i like is the very subtle details that suggest my instrument (127mm refractor) was at maximum resolution.

-Charles

[laudropb]

Lovely set down very interesting demonstration. Thanks for posting this.

[johnfosteruk]

What a difference Charles.

[David Smith]

I think we all appreciate that seeing is critical to a good capture but this really drives home how big an impact seeing can have on an image. Thank you Charles, very interesting.

[cshahar]

Thanks again. I am going to try it for the next session as well!

-Charles