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Originally Posted by plasmodium
Is this range what we can expect given average atmospheric conditions, or is this a range of "good conditions" to image under...????
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This depends on what you want to do and is open to interpretation. If you are imaging the planets, you'd want to try and get under .75 arcsec per pixel for optimal resolution. Atmospheric conditions are your problem here. Some sites located near mountains or the sea will never provide this level of stability.
Deep sky objects don't require such high resolution work and in most cases are extremely dim compared to planets. A higher arcsec per pixel is then desirable. I'm not saying you can't go high res on deep sky objects, you can, but you'll have better luck around the 1.5 to 3.0 range. Always try and match the camera with your telescope (or vice-versa - depending on budget). If you're really keen, get yourself an adaptive optics unit or similar.
Some auto guiding software/camera combinations will actually tell you what your seeing will provide. As the guiding is taking place it can measure not only the mount corrections, but variations in atmospheric turbulance (provided on a arcsec measurement).