RE: [ATM] Stone observatory folly

["mbyorick" <mbyorick@starband.net>]

Some of us (in the southwestern New Mexico area) recently went to an
extraordinary amount of trouble to erect a Quonset-hut-sized roll-off
roof observatory, just get a (24") scope about 3 meters above the
ground.  But for the 'requirement' (I believe initiated by an astronomer
at the Univ. of Arkansas) for the elevated viewing position, we could
have much more easily built a structure about one-third the size.  There
IS some (observationally-based) data somewhere out there that indicates
that the seeing gets significantly better several meters above the
ground, but I don't have a pointer to it.  It is also my understanding
that other, larger, observatories have recently been built in accordance
with the same principle, which makes common sense if one assumes that
the nightly releasing of the Sun's heat from the ground certainly causes
turbulence, the magnitude of which decreases as some function of the
distance from the ground.

Mike Byorick 

> I don't know about your horizon, but I have read, in more than one
> place, that a significant fraction of bad atmospheric seeing actually
> occurs within 2 - 3 meters of the ground.  If this is true at your
site,
> even one story worth of elevation could pay off in steadier images.
> 
> --
> Mark Holm

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