Re: ATM Pic du Midi (08/15/96 posting!)

[epabcc@epa.ericsson.se (Bratislav Curcic)]

Gene,

the only complaint from me is that you've left me in the s**t for
3 months !

Seriously, I do believe in all that you (and David Fried) said.
There are only few things I'd like to add : 

1) this stuff applies mostly to "professional" size telescopes in less than
   optimal condition; as you already pointed there is no need for Pic
   and Catalina 'scopes to be stopped down, as optimal size for those
   sites is in several meters' region

2) if your seeing is equivalent of ~50mm cell, you're wasting your time
   on planetary imaging anyway (as I did say before); if seeing is
   anywhere near decent ("rho" > 100mm), virtually all amateur
   telescopes are too small to benefit from stopping down (diffraction
   limited scopes above 500mm in amateur hands are _extremely_ rare)
 
3) if still in doubt, I enclosed a CCD image of Jupiter, done in less
   than optimal conditions (seeing of ~6 on Pickering scale) with a 185 mm
   instrument from a site only few km from center of Melbourne (sorry
   folks, this one goes to Gene only, as I don't want to waste ATM
   bandwith).  Resolution is _well_ below an arcsecond, I'd say in ~0.5
   arcsec region (i.e. close to what is theoretically possible with
   this size). 
   Point is - even with mediocre seeing, things CHANGE from one second
   to the next, and if you stopped your scope down, you're going to
   miss the opportunity. 

Up to my waist ? Heh, how about up to my knees ? :-)

 Bratislav