Well lets just say. I had a 2 nite when i first tried my new 12.5" Zambuto. Everything was so bad stars were like oversize bloated steel wool and Jup was so bad it was very hard to make out the two main belts and the moons were blobs.
I don't bother with planet viewing unless i have 7 or better seeing. 7 meaning the planet comes and goes and some snap. Only had one nite the seeing went away in Tampa in Feb 2001 with a 14.5" Starmaster - Zmabuto and ran out of pow wow at 1150x on Jup and Sat. It was so still nothing was moving not even a mouse.
9 seeing means very still with a little mush over from time to time. 8 pretty much the same but less steady time. Feb is only month i get good seeing on avg if it is very warm and sea fog is about to move on shore. I never have good seeing in the summer at sundown but avg 8 or better after 3am in the summer. I get a near dead still nite in Dec but it was warm.
Anytime a front goes by and temps are cold then forget it. As for dark skies none are left in FL. You can't get far enough away from one city before you start seeing a light dome from another city.
Even when i am 80 mile offshore the whole east sky is lit up 40 degrees high and bright enough i can see the deck of the boat. Gotta be 120 mile offshore to lose the dome in 1000ft of water.
Ah! That clarifies things for me. Pun not intended. LOL You were talking about stability in the atmosphere. Now that makes more sense.
The old man said he really did not have very much in the way of light pollution issues at his place. It was between Pensacola and Crestview. Surrounded by Eglin and huge park areas. He stated that anything below 10 degrees in altitude wasn't worth the effort mostly because so much atmosphere what in the way. It's even worse along the shoreline. Out on the ocean that may not be the case since so many swabbies always said they could see stars right to the horizon when in the middle of the ocean. Actually, grand dad, his father, used to say the same when sailing from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas. He had a CAL-346 for a number of years.
Oh. About the health issues, my old man was paralyzed from the waist down on his 60th birthday. The quacks said he would spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair. He told them very directly and very emphatically that he was leaving on he feet or in a bag! Three months later he walked out and has been walking, with some difficulties at times and in a lot of pain as well, since then.
He is now 71 and his ability to lift heavy objects is very limited but, he still tries and mostly succeeds. I constantly have to read him the riot act for not calling me to help or for not waiting until I get back from work. What a stubborn old So-And-So! LOL
His constant lecture to us and his command and staff was that you cannot tell him that something, anything, cannot be done. HE and HE ALONE will tell YOU when something cannot be done! He even went up against his CG and told that straight to his face! No wonder he got those three stripes!
He says his mother always told him that he never knew the meaning of the word NO! I guess grandma was right. LOL
Chas, thank you for the explanation.
Q
