Selection of candidate sites for Iranian national observatory by wind-rose studies

Abstract

The site selection procedure for optical observatories housing a telescope with a sizeable aperture is described. The theory of seeing is briefly introduced and a special type of seeing monitor that is widely used for seeing measurements is discussed. The results of the meteorological studies mainly based on the wind-rose diagrams are presented. These are done for 31 preliminary selected candidate sites using the data obtained from meteorological synoptic stations during the last 20 years.

Keywords

• astronomical seeing
• atmospheric coherence diameter
• wind-rose
• clam wind percentage