Related papers: Motivations for Imaging Spectroscopy at Dome C

Due to its location and climate, Antarctica offers unique conditions for long-period observations across a broad wavelength regime, where important diagnostic lines for molecules and ions can be found, that are essential to understand the…

Dome A in Antarctica has been demonstrated to be the best site on earth for optical, infrared, and terahertz astronomical observations by more and more evidence, such as excellent free-atmosphere seeing, extremely low perceptible water…

Antarctica provides a unique environment for astronomy. The cold, dry and stable air found above the high plateau, as well as the pure ice below, offers new opportunities across the photon & particle spectrum. The summits of the plateau…

Preliminary site testing datasets suggest that Dome C in Antarctica is one of the best sites on Earth for astronomical observations in the 200 to 500 micron regime, i.e. for far-infrared (FIR) and submillimetre (submm) astronomy. We present…

Due to the recent interest shown by astronomers towards the Antarctic Plateau as a potential site for large astronomical facilities, we assisted in the last years to a strengthening of site testing activities in this region, particularly at…

The recent discovery of exceptional seeing conditions at Dome C, Antarctica, raises the possibility of constructing an optical observatory there with unique capabilities. However, little is known from an astronomer's perspective about the…

Over the past few years a major effort has been put into the exploration of potential sites for the deployment of submillimetre astronomical facilities. Amongst the most important sites are Dome C and Dome A on the Antarctic Plateau, and…

The Antarctic plateau contains the best sites on earth for many forms of astronomy, but none of the existing bases was selected with astronomy as the primary motivation. In this article, we try to systematically compare the merits of…

The evaluation of sky characteristics plays a fundamental role for many astrophysical experiments and ground-based observations. In solar physics, the main requirement for such observations is a very low sky brightness value, that is, less…

The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, NIR, and THz astronomical observations. GATTINI was a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led…

The cold, dry and stable air above the summits of the Antarctic plateau provides the best ground-based observing conditions from optical to sub-mm wavelengths to be found on the Earth. PILOT is a proposed 2 m telescope, to be built at Dome…

The Antarctic Multiband Infrared Camera (AMICA) is a double channel camera operating in the 2-28 micron infrared domain (KLMNQ bands) that will allow to characterize and exploit the exceptional advantages for Astronomy, expected from Dome C…

Beating the Earth's day-night cycle is mandatory for long and continuous time-series photometry and had been achieved with either large ground-based networks of observatories at different geographic longitudes or when conducted from space.…

The detection of transiting extrasolar planets requires high-photometric quality and long-duration photometric stellar time-series. In this paper, we investigate the advantages provided by the Antarctic observing platform Dome C for planet…

Surveys provide a wealth of data to the astronomical community that are used well after their completion. In this paper, we propose a project that would take the maximum benefit of Dome C in Antarctica by performing two surveys, in the…

Dome C in Antarctica is a promising site for photometric observations thanks to the continuous night during the Antarctic winter and favorable weather conditions. We developed instruments to assess the quality of this site for photometry in…

At an altitude of 3250m and at a latitude of $75^\circ$S, the Italo-French Concordia station was open to winter-over teams in 2005. It is one of the high points of the Antarctic polar plateau. These extreme remote sites are expected to…

We present low-resolution turbulence profiles of the atmosphere above Dome C, Antarctica, measured with the MASS instrument during 25 nights in March-May 2004. Except for the lowest layer, Dome C has significantly less turbulence than Cerro…

The low infrared background and high atmospheric transparency are the principal advantages of Antarctic Plateau sites for astronomy. However, the poor seeing (between one and three arcseconds) negates much of the sensitivity improvements…

PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope) is a proposed 2.5 m optical/infrared telescope to be located at Dome C on the Antarctic plateau. Conditions at Dome C are known to be exceptional for astronomy. The seeing…