From: "Tom Krajci" 
To: 
Reply-To: "Tom Krajci" 


>From: "Bob May" 

>I would more suspect the tops of the riges would be the best place as
the
>cool air from the little valleys will all be below you and thus there
will
>be less ripple from the moving air.

But depending on your topography and climate...beware of high winds at
night on ridges.

When I lived in northwest (Shreveport/Bossier City) Louisiana, I used to
drive four hours to get to the Ouachita Mountains near Mena, Arkansas.
Beautiful, dark, cooler, a bit dryer (and the highest terrain at a whopping
2400 feet MSL...such is life near the gulf coast).

But almost every night the wind was very strong on the ridge tops. Fifty
feet below the ridge tops were much better in that case.  (My first hint
was the fact that oak trees, which grow enormous in the valley below...were
as large as Japanese Bonzai trees on the ridge tops. A surprisingly
different micro climate on the upper fifty feet of those ridges.)

Sloan Digital Sky Survey scope has similar problems south of Cloudcroft,
New Mexico.  The scope sits on a platform that juts out/over the lip of the
ridge...into the prevailing air flow.  Supposedly helps with seeing...but
they had to build a special wind baffle around the scope (does not touch
the scope...but follows/covers it closely)...and even then I've been told
they still lose some fraction of clear nights to high winds.

Tom Krajci
Tashkent, Uzbekistan


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