Site testing at astronomical sites: evaluation of seeing using satellite-based data

Abstract

We present, for the first time, a new method to estimate seeing using remote sounding from the infrared night-time data of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 12. We discuss the correlation found between the ground-based data and the satellite-derived values from the analysis of the sites located at Cerro Paranal (Chile) and Roque de los Muchachos (Canary Islands, Spain). We obtain a ground–satellite correlation percentage of about 90 per cent. Finally, by studying the correlation between the data from the afternoon and the following night, we are able to provide a forecast for the photometric night quality.