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

[mmotta at massmed.org]

The clear sky clock is a best guess
estimate, not always right, I thought
the transparency last night was not that
good, and seeing poor.

Mario

On Wed, 09 May 2007 16:03:57 +0000,
mcilento at comcast.net wrote:

> 
> 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