INVESTIGATION OF SEEING BY MEANS OF AN ATMOSPHERIC MESOSCALE NUMERICAL-SIMULATION

We intend to show the potential of the numerical simulation of atmosph eric turbulence to help find optimal sites for astronomical observatio n. We present results obtained with an atmospheric model, in which a r epresentation of turbulence has been included. The model simulates the atmospheric flow over any given area, including the gross characteris tics of the turbulence, from which maps of the astronomical seeing can be retrieved. A validation of the approach is obtained with actual me asurements of the seeing, taken during field campaigns on two differen t sites. We find a good correlation in time between the observed and s imulated values of the seeing, and we argue that this result can be ex trapolated to space correlations.