Seeing Questions?

I was out last night with my Intes MN56 with the intention of viewing Mars and the moon. Had the scope outside early, 2 hours before viewing, so it should have been well chilled and near equilibrium, especially since the temp was stable for the 1.5 hours I was out.

I should say that I live in Maine, on the coast, which is downstream from darn near everything in the U.S. atmospherically and often directly under the jet stream.

Anyway, I started on Mars with my 19 Panoptic to get things lined up. I had done a very rough polar alignment and no mount calibration.

I quickly stepped down to my 6mm UA HD Ortho (127x) and the view showed a bit of detail. The 5mm UA HD (150x) showed about the same. I figured the atmosphere was hindering the seeing and slewed to the moon and spent considerable time with the 5mm just enjoying the views. It appeared to be quite stable with fine details in the craters etc.
I then switched to the 6mm barlowed with my TV 2X (254X) and the surface of the moon was dancing around, in and out of focus dramatically. Very unstable. Almost to the point of seasickness! Fine again under the 5mm and back to wild at 250X.

I slewed back to Mars and the 5 and 6mm Ep's and still just a bit of detail, so I decided to go inside for a while and see if things settled down.
Back out at 9:30 with the 5 and 6mm and a very slight improvement on Mars but still marginal detail, just bits of dark areas off and on. I watched for 15 minutes until clouds sent me in for the night. During the 15 minutes the darker area would move a bit and make me think, briefly, that I was seeing some significant details but I had no WOW! moments.

I had checked the collimation earlier and there seemed to be a very slight shift from inside focus to outside focus at 150X on Polaris. I really had to study it so things seem pretty well lined up.

THE BIG QUESTIONS??

Is the image fluctuation on the moon at high power indicative of bad seeing that would account for the lack of detail on Mars?

Should I fine tune the collimation until it's perfect?

Is the atmosphere in Maine inherently unstable?

Try as I might I have a Dickens of a time getting good planetary views.

Thanks in advance for any ideas. I keep thinking I need more diameter but am wondering if my location is also holding me back...

David, collimation is very important, but I doubt very much that this is your problem...

From what you mention, it seems as if the Seeing was just against you, and would not allow to do any high mag work at all... (I've heard of many times about Maine's area Jet problem & the Seeing)

If looking at The Moon was as bad as you picture, then I would most certainly say that the atmosphere was VERY unstable. (I'm taking into consideration that your scope had plenty of cool down time, and that the temperatures were steady...)



Clear dark cool steady skies to all! 8)

David,

I look at the jet stream map before every outing:

http://www.wunderground.com/US/Region/US/2xJetStream.html

I think your conditions in Maine are similar to mine here in Maryland and the rest of the Northeast. The jet stream is overhead about 90% of the time, and high-mag viewing suffers. Typically I get a total of maybe 30 seconds of WOW-type viewing (in 2 or 3 second pieces) out of every hour.

The jet stream map, combined with the Clear Sky Clock, is helpful for planning: If a green or yellow section of the JS is overhead I don't even try lunar or planetary viewing; I stick to DSO's. If it's brown then I can expect better conditions and plan for L & P viewing. A really stable "Florida-type" night only happens once or twice a year (usually in the summer combined with hazy skies).

I have a question also: what are the general seeing conditions on the west coast of the US? I'm looking at some beach property in southern Washington state, and have hopes that maybe the atmosphere will be nice and laminar coming off the ocean, like western Florida. Am I right?

Thanks,

Tim Iafolla