Sky visibility and atmospheric conditions are important factors to determine when to obtain clear astronomical pictures. meteoblue "Astronomical seeing" shows a 7-days hourly outlook of the essential conditions for good observations, with colour coding to help finding the right time slot and to make observation planning easier.
Astronomical seeing conditions:
- Cloud cover for 3 different layers (0-4 km asl, 4-8 km asl, 8-15 km asl) ;
- Seeing indexes computed based on the integration of turbulent layers in the atmosphere
(in review) ;
- Jet Stream: high speeds (>35m/s) usually correspond to bad seeing ;
- Ground Temperature ;
- Visible planets.
This tool is appreciated by astronomers worldwide. The german television channel KiKA demonstrated how to plan astronomical observations with the help of meteoblue "Astronomical seeing". On the scientific side, we have conducted a cloudiness validation in cooperation with a worldwide astronomy website: 2830 visual observations of cloud cover made in 5 continents showed that meteoblue forecasts predicted more than 70% of all cloud occurrences correctly . A detailed report can be found on our page with cooperative study results. For the seeing indices, we plan a scientific validation in 2019.
