Investigation of seeing by means of an atmospheric mesoscale numerical simulation.

We intend to show the potential of the numerical simulation of atmospheric turbulence to help find optimal sites for astronomical observation. We present results obtained with an atmospheric model, in which a representation of turbulence has been included. The model simulates the atmospheric flow over any given area, including the gross characteristics of the turbulence, from which maps of the astronomical seeing can be retrieved. A validation of the approach is obtained with actual measurements of the seeing, taken during field campaigns on two different sites. We find a good correlation in time between the observed and simulated values of the seeing, and we argue that this result can be extrapolated to space correlations.