Related papers: Dome C site testing: surface layer, free atmospher…
Detecting the presence of circumstellar dust around nearby solar-type main sequence stars is an important pre-requisite for the design of future life-finding space missions such as ESA's Darwin or NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF). The…
Antarctica offers unique conditions for ground-based observations, such as low sky background in the infrared, improved seeing, and low turbulence and scintillation noise. These properties are particularly beneficial to imaging, precision…
Based on the observations of the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR), the i band observing conditions at Antarctic Dome A have been investigated. The over all variations of sky brightness and transparency are calculated and subsequently…
Dome A on the Antarctic plateau is likely one of the best observing sites on Earth thanks to the excellent atmospheric conditions present at the site during the long polar winter night. We present high-cadence time-series aperture…
Mesoscale model such as Meso-Nh have proven to be highly reliable in reproducing 3D maps of optical turbulence (see Refs. 1, 2, 3, 4) above mid-latitude astronomical sites. These last years ground-based astronomy has been looking towards…
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…
We present results from the first year of a campaign to characterize and monitor the optical turbulence profile at the SAAO Sutherland observing station in South Africa. A MASS-DIMM (MultiAperture Scintillation Sensor - Differential Image…
We present an analysis of meteorological data from the second generation of the Kunlun Automated Weather Station (KLAWS-2G) at Dome A, Antarctica during 2015 and 2016. We find that a strong temperature inversion exists for all the…
We present results from a season of observations with the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR), obtained over 183 days of the 2010 Antarctic winter. We carried out high-cadence time-series aperture photometry of 20,000 stars with i<15.3…
The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) is the first telescope facility built at Dome A, Antarctica. During the 2008 observing season, the installation provided long-baseline and high-cadence photometric observations in the i-band for…
Results of 3-month continuous monitoring of turbulence profile and seeing at Cerro Tololo (Chile) in May-July 2002 are presented. Some 28000 low-resolution profiles were measured by a new MASS single-star turbulence monitor, accompanied by…
Atmospheric optical turbulence seriously limits the performance of high angular resolution instruments. An 8-night campaign of measurements was carried out at the LAMOST site in 2011, to characterize the optical turbulence. Two instruments…
Results of 2005-2007 campaign of measurement of the optical turbulence vertical distribution above Mt. Maidanak are presented. Measurements are performed with the MASS (Multi-Aperture Scintillation Sensor) device which is widely used in…
It has already been demonstrated that a mesoscale meteorological model such as Meso-NH is highly reliable in reproducing 3D maps of optical turbulence. Preliminary measurements above the Antarctic Plateau have so far indicated a pretty good…
In this paper, we conducted a detailed analysis of optical turbulence in the Atmospheric Surface Layer (ASL) at Muztagh-ata site during on-site testing. We utilized ultrasonic anemometers positioned on a 30-meter tower to collect and…
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…
Ground-based observations around 1.4 $\mu$m are normally limited by strong absorption of telluric water-vapor. However, Dome A, Antarctica has exceptionally dry conditions that offer a unique opportunity for observations in this band. We…
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…
We present an analysis of the science image quality obtained on the twin 6.5 metre Magellan telescopes over a 1.5 year period, using images of ~10^5 stars. We find that the telescopes generally obtain significantly better image quality than…
The internal antarctic plateau revealed in the last years to be a site with interesting potentialities for the astronomical applications due to the extreme dryness and low temperatures, the typical high altitude of the plateau, the weak…