Comparison of the scintillation noise above different observatories measured with MASS instruments
Abstract
Scintillation noise is a major limitation of ground base photometric precision. An extensive dataset of stellar scintillation collected at 11 astronomical sites world-wide with MASS instruments was used to estimate the scintillation noise of large telescopes in the case of fast photometry and traditional long-exposure regime. Statistical distributions of the corresponding parameters are given. The scintillation noise is mostly determined by turbulence and wind in the upper atmosphere and comparable at all sites, with slightly smaller values at Mauna Kea and largest noise at Tolonchar in Chile. We show that the classical Young's formula under-estimates the scintillation noise.The temporal variations of the scintillation noise are also similar at all sites, showing short-term variability at time scales of 1 -- 2 hours and slower variations, including marked seasonal trends (stronger scintillation and less clear sky during local winter). Some correlation was found between nearby observatories.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1208.3824,
title = {Comparison of the scintillation noise above different observatories measured with MASS instruments},
author = {V. Kornilov and M. Sarazin and A. Tokovinin and T. Travouillon and O. Voziakova},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.3824},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 14 pages, 11 figures