European Extremely Large Telescope Site Characterization II: High angular resolution parameters
Abstract
This is the second article of a series devoted to European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) site characterization. In this article we present the main properties of the parameters involved in high angular resolution observations from the data collected in the site testing campaign of the E-ELT during the Design Study (DS) phase. Observations were made in 2008 and 2009, in the four sites selected to shelter the future E-ELT (characterized under the ELT-DS contract): Aklim mountain in Morocco, Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) in Spain, Mac\'on range in Argentina, and Cerro Ventarrones in Chile. The same techniques, instruments and acquisition procedures were taken on each site. A Multiple Aperture Scintillation Sensor (MASS) and a Differential Image Motion Monitor (DIMM) were installed at each site. Global statistics of the integrated seeing, the free atmosphere seeing, the boundary layer seeing and the isoplanatic angle were studied for each site, and the results are presented here. In order to estimate other important parameters such as the coherence time of the wavefront and the overall parameter "coherence \'etendue" additional information of vertical profiles of the wind speed was needed. Data were retrieved from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) archive. Ground wind speed was measured by Automatic Weather Stations (AWS). More aspects of the turbulence parameters such as their seasonal trend, their nightly evolution and their temporal stability were also obtained and analyzed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1207.4229,
title = {European Extremely Large Telescope Site Characterization II: High angular resolution parameters},
author = {Héctor Vázquez Ramió and Jean Vernin and Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón and Marc Sarazin and Antonia M. Varela and Hervé Trinquet and José Miguel Delgado and Jesús J. Fuensalida and Marcos Reyes and Abdelmajid Benhida and Zouhair Benkhaldoun and Diego García Lambas and Youssef Hach and M. Lazrek and Gianluca Lombardi and Julio Navarrete and Pablo Recabarren and Victor Renzi and Mohammed Sabil and Rubén Vrech},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.4229},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
46 pages and 17 figures. Accepted to be published in PASP