Arizona seeing quality

I have been looking at the Canadian website that forecasts predictions of seeing conditions for North America frequently for the last 4 or 5 months. When my portion of the Midwest is in the light or medium blue I have experienced some really splendid planetary observations and splits of close doubles. September and October brought most of these days in the Midwest but there were a few in December and January. More recently I have been glancing at the Southwest and Florida on the same maps. I often see much of Arizona in medium or occasionally dark blue. When I have been at the Grand Canyon I have experienced very dark and very transparent skies, but not steady skies. Has the planetary seeing in Arizona over the last couple of months been excellent? I wonder if medium blue seeing for Arizona means the same Pickering number that medium blue seeing means in the Midwest or the Florida Keys--anybody have any experience with this? Have the apo owners in Arizona had seeing conditions that will support mags of 50X per inch of aperture? If so I may start looking for real estate...

Kim,

I visited friends in Yuma, Arizona over the Christmas/New Year holidays. I observed with my 8" Portaball over 6 different nights. On two of the best nights, I observed from the desert between Yuma and Phoenix. These were some of the best dark, steady skies that I've ever seen. The detail on the planets was outstanding, and I saw six stars in the Trapezium.

Perhaps a group of astronomers should form a community out in the Arizona desert with extremely severe light pollution laws...

-Barry R. Fernelius

I don't know about the last couple of months but over the last few years, before I moved away, it was OK to excellent. The excellent planetary nights were rare. There was this very bad night when neither my 152ED nor an AP 6" starfire could split castor. Now that I am in Oregon, the good nights are pretty abundant, although it is seldom clear (but tonight was).