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Best seeing




'Seeing' is critical for looking at planets. What is this property of the sky? Firstly, we do not want a swirly atmosphere. I think that wind is horrible for playing tennis... perhaps even worse than a little rain, which one hardly notices. Wind is just as bad in the atmosphere, stirring up air currents and preventing a good look at the planets.

The best seeing therefore occurs in a frozen atmosphere! This basically means there are cirrus clouds present, which are made of ice. If the sky is covered in cirrus, this is an excellent time to view the planets. Don't be afraid of clouds. I have noticed clouds make excellent filters, if they are not too thick. They can bring out amazing details not otherwise noticed on planets.


I am not sure if anyone has this in their notebooks, or if astronomers still use notebooks, but I was shocked on the early morning of Saturday, June 25th, 2011. For some reason I had been waking up every morning nice and early about an hour before sunrise. Naturally Jupiter was nice and visible. Every day I had been seeing Jupiter as it always was. On this particular day, however, the sky stood still. It was absolutely like looking through a totally different instrument. The seeing was incredible. The sky was still. Yes, and it's NEVER still. Wow. I have an 8" reflector. The detail I saw is what you see through at least a 12" reflector. It was unimaginably good. As the sun was coming up the air temperatures were changing and the view started to deteriorate, but from two hours I stared at the thing at 158x magnification! It was crystal clear, like Hubble!

I wrote in my logbook: `BEST VIEW OF JUPITER I HAVE EVER SEEN... While sun coming up, very still atmosphere, crescent moon. View of Jupiter sharp, Hubble-telescope-like detail. Better than my 2008 map'.

My 2008 map of Jupiter was assembled from a comparison of about 40 drawings of the planet. I could see a lot more, so much that it looked like a different planet! That is the power of seeing!


Conclusion



So when is the best time to `see'?

I have noticed that a few hours after sunset, the ground has usually cooled nicely. It is useful to have your telescope over grass rather than over something which holds more heat, like bricks which have been baking away all day. Another good time is late at night. Seeing sometimes keeps increasing, but it never really clears up very well. One would theoretically expect the early morning to the best time for seeing. The ground has had a great deal of time to clear up. Make sure also that the telescope has been outside for about half an hour before presuming one will get any good steady seeing out of it.



Updated, May 2015.



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