I had the scope setup on the balcony this past week and stowed it inside literally ten minutes before a brief rain tonight. ...Lucky me, but before disassembling the scope, I did observe Jupiter in and out of breaks in the clouds. To my surprise the seeing was exceptional: close to sharp images at 1000x. For the past couple weeks I have been comparing my location's seeing with the Canadian Meteorological Center's Seeing Forecast (http://www.cmc.ec.gc.ca/cmc/htmls/seeing_e.html). Out of six sessions, the forecast apparently corresponded with the actual seeing conditions--I used the star diffraction pattern as a guide located on the site. Given tonight's surprising stability, I checked the site afterwards: the seeing was better than what was predicted. Of course, seven non-scientific comparisons hardly constitute a hard case for believing in this model, but I am finding myself checking the forecast before I decide to observe. As a result, all but one of the six sessions have had good seeing on the scale between a "III" and "IV" (hovering above and below one arc-second) again corresponding with the predictions. I plan to continue comparing my seeing estimates with the forecasts--and actually commit the efforts to paper, as well as observe on unfavorable predicated nights--unfortunately if Brian is correct, I won't be doing very much observing this month. The rain is worth it, though. -FRANK -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.