Seeing Conditions at Sutherland. Results of the 1992/93 seeing campaign

In order to decide whether the seeing conditions at SAAO/Sutherland justify the erection of a 3.5 m telescope and also to compare Sutherland with the Gamsberg/Namibia site, a seeing campaign covering 15 months has been carrie d out. For direct comparison with the results of the seeing campaign at Gam sberg twenty years before the same QUESTAR telescope was employed. The seei ng is determined by the scattering of the star-trail exposed on a film in t he focal plane of the telescope. The campaign commenced in February 1992. Up to May 1993, data for 204 night s, that is 47.3% of the total number of nights, were collected. Due to wind speeds above 30 km h(-1), 25 out of the 204 nights were not considered in the final reduction. The useful 179 nights are evenly distributed over the campaign period. The median seeing value for the whole period is sigma = 0. " 52. There are differences during the year: the best season gives sigma = 0." 42, the worst sigma = 0." 67. Each night was divided into three interva ls, although data for each of the three intervals were not always available . Generally, there is an improvement in the seeing during the course of a n ight. The results are compared to the seeing values of Gamsberg/Namibia and ESO/L a Silla.