Worst seeing ever

[jjosefsen]

It was bad here in Denmark too.

Finally clear skies on the night before last,  so I headed out. Usually the milky way is glorious and really clear, could hardly see it on that night. Ended up spending most of the time experimenting with new finder and eye piece while looking at M42. Had a quick look at the moon before heading home.

[chiltonstar]

...and yet now it's superb!

I spent a pleasant hour with my grab 'n go (Mak 127) between showers on Alnitak (beautifully spliit at x196), with blue-white and yellow colours visible, Beta Mon ( a pretty triple), and with a good split of Sirius to show the Pup chasing along behind its mum! There was even a tiny bit of detail still evident on Mars, despite the small size and low altitude.

Amazing how seeing can change from hour to hour, day to day.....

Chris

[SilverAstro]

There might be something in this jetstream thing, yesterday and last night there was a minor loop of it over the UK,  afternoon and night  top two pics below, and today and this evening (when Chris reports good, I cant verify as I am clouded out still ! ) the bottom two, the loop moved off and we are between two 'bits'.

On the other hand, it is a poor statistical sample and I've not checked on where the low pressures are currently ! so ymmv

[Pete Presland]

On ‎14‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 19:59, Paul M said:

Seeing shouldn't be confused with sky clarity.

On nights of good seeing it quite common for the sky clarity to be poor. A stable light haze is evidence that there is not so much vertical mixing in the atmosphere.

I've heard it said that jet streams cause bad seeing. That's a new concept to me and I don't say I disagree. Jet steams are at high altitude in relatively thin air that isn't doing much mixing. More laminar than turbulent I'd have thought.

The "stable haze" theory is why I dragged myself outside at 3:30am on Monday morning, unfortunately to be confronted by the usual rubbish. I certainly think there is some truth in the Jetstream theory, based purely on my observations. That said there are many localised reasons for a poor view as well.

One is for certain good sky clarity/transparency is very little indication that decent seeing is present.

Because of the impossible task of trying to guess the conditions, I tend to just grab every opportunity that presents itself. Law of averages means a will strike gold eventually.......maybe