Is anyone measuring the seeing tonight?

Folks - I'm imaging like mad here and the seeing seems to be pretty poor. I'm getting between 5 and 8 arcsecs/pixel which is pretty rubbish.

It could either be the seeing really is poor or I've got some settings in the software wrong.

As an afterthought, does anyone know if a full-moon has an effect? I'm sure it doesn't directly affect seeing but perhaps the skyglow affects the calculation the software makes to produce the FWHM.

See, I don't know it all

Cheers
Dave

Folks - I'm imaging like mad here and the seeing seems to be pretty poor. I'm getting between 5 and 8 arcsecs/pixel which is pretty rubbish.

Dave,

This is disgusting. I call it quits once I am over 3.5 arcsecs/pixel. I have also run into occasions where I have been above 6.0 arcsecs/pixel but never as high as you are reporting (8"/pixel).

Please excuse me for saying so but have you lost focus (a bit) due to a drop in temperature? This happens occasionally and we forget to revisit our focus with the end result being bloated stars.

As for the moon, I have encountered the opposite where I tend to get better FWHM figures when the (full) moon is doing its dirty work.

Dave,
I did not even bother to go out tonight. A lot of twinkling stars and slight haze. I took the scope out to show a friend a few things and within minutes the whole set up was covered in dew.

Kieran

Kieran,

This is surprising since dew is often a very good predictor for good seeing (at least in my case).

Dave when I was out imaging M42 a little earlier I was getting a FWHM of about 1.6". On a good night i can get that close to 1" however thats rare enough. Certainly nothing like 8" You been puffin funny tobacco again?

Tony,

My dew heaters are rubbish or else the power supply is. Last night I had the heaters on full blast and I had dew form on the inside of the refractor and the ccd glass cover. I am running it of a battery charger but I think I will buy another 12V regulated supply for the heaters.

Kieran