Excellent Seeing ???

I wasn't planning on going out last night, but when I glanced at the seeing forecasts, Clear Sky Chart (I keep saying Clear Sky Clock), predicted excellent seeing from 1-5 am.  Astrospheric also predicted excellent seeing from 2 am onward.  I was doubtful because I've went out under these supposed "excellent" conditions only to discover average seeing with shorter bouts (10 sec to 2 min) of decent to above average seeing.   I set up and took a little Saturn footage relatively early, then waited for Mars and the moon to get to a decent height.

When I checked again around 10 pm, the "excellent" seeing was pushed back to 4 am on CSC but Astrospheric remained the same.  I've also seen this scenario where the excellent seeing gets pushed back constantly until it doesn't start until 7 am (or later).   But having been up once during these delayed excellent forecasts, I've discovered that any excellent seeing that happens after sunrise gets destroyed by the sun which creates all kinds of turbulence for at least an hour.

I decided to set up the QHY462C camera and I tried my two different barlows and I wish I had taken better notes on which barlow I was using at what times.  I tried some A/B comparisons and I think for Mars, the Televue had the sharper view.  

I did some 11 x 2 min runs on Mars between 11 and 4:30-ish.  Prior to 4 am, it was okay but nothing special.  In fact, I was in that situation where I'd have moments of relative stillness in the image, but there wasn't much detail on the surface.  I also began to worry that the 462C was just inferior compared with the 290m with filters.  It just seemed like I was seeing finer detail with the 290m.

I finished a run around 3:30 am and I began to think about wrapping up since I wasn't seeing anything better than the usual okay footage.  But I took a short break, then came out to very still conditions...

(Try "full screen" after starting the video.)

I took this footage a little after 4 am.  I had to stand back to avoid weird lines I sometimes get from taking video so close to the laptop screen.  The footage isn't completely still, there is some mild high-frequency shaking and a little bit of "wavy gravy" but overall, this is MUCH better than what I experience under typical "excellent" conditions.   

So, this is it.  The best sustained seeing conditions I've experienced in maybe 300 nights.  I wish I had had the big dob setup.   It would have been phenomenal.

These conditions are pretty much what you get about 50% of the time in Florida.  In Florida, this would be called "good" to "very good".   Excellent seeing in Florida goes up a notch and that image would be dead still for 5-30 seconds if all your equipment is thermally stabilized.

After doing an 11 x 2 min run.  I took some footage of Uranus and it seemed like conditions worsened a bit.  Then I swung over to Venus and tried using the 462C with the Baader U-Venus filter.   It was pretty awful as the 462 is not very sensitive in ultraviolet.   Switched to the 290m (should have done this sooner) and got some okay Venus footage.   Earlier I collected at least some lunar footage but I don't remember when.  :/

I feel like I need a good old spiral notebook when I'm out shooting.

[Later:  I think I figured out how to properly read the seeing forecasts: 1) First, they are not going to be accurate 3 days out.  Too many variables around a mountain.  2) If Clear Sky Chart says excellent 12 hours before AND Astrospheric predicts excellent skies for a LARGE swath of land (including all of San Francisco Peaks), then it will probably be at least very good.  The dark blue area of excellence needs to extend for at least 30 miles in all directions.  Just as a point of reference, both Meteoblue and GoodtoStargaze completely dropped the ball on the 4 am excellent seeing. ]