[ATMoB-discuss] Suburban light pollution / last night's seeing

[mcilento at comcast.net]

Based on the Clear Sky clock, I had Transparency=4 but only a Seeing=2.
The Darkness category does assume no light pollution, butthere is a link to the light pollution map below it in the Nifty links section - which is disheartening when you see the visual map.

I did notice that the sky wasn't as dark as it could be, but I had the opportunity to collect a few photons and went for it anyway.

Even with the bright sky and averted vision, I could barely make out M51 (mag 9) visually with my 5" Mak.

I had great polar alignment so my tracking was spot on and the raw images are keepers...

YMMV,
Matt

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Bruce Wilson" <brucehughw at gmail.com>
> Thanks, Mario (and Dave). Ok, the wind aspect is easy to recognize. Would
> the clear sky clock have told  me that it wasn't going to be a great night?
> 
> On 5/9/07, mmotta at massmed.org <mmotta at massmed.org> wrote:
> >
> > I did not observe from my observatory
> > last night for two reasons:
> > 1. high haze, not apparent just looking
> > up, but that scatters the existing light
> > pollution and brightens the sky.
> > 2. windy, that causes poor seeing.
> > thus.. you just picked a bad night.
> >
> > Mario