Related papers: A different glance to the site testing above Dome …

Dome seeing is a known source of image quality degradation, but despite tremendous progress in wavefront control with the development of adaptive optics and environmental control through implementation of dome venting, surprisingly little…

AST3-2 is the second of the three Antarctic Survey Telescopes, aimed at wide-field time-domain optical astronomy. It is located at Dome A, Antarctica, which is by many measures the best optical astronomy site on the Earth's surface. Here we…

The purpose of this thesis is to focus attention on the mechanical aspects in designing an infrared telescope, IRAIT (International Robotic Antarctic Infrared Telescope), with aperture size of 80 cm, f#=21, entirely robotic and remote…

The possibility to observe transiting exoplanets from Dome C in Antarctica provides immense benefits: stable weather conditions, limited atmospheric turbulence, and a night that lasts almost three months due to the austral winter. However,…

This paper briefly describes the principle of operation and science goals of the AMANDA high energy neutrino telescope located at the South Pole, Antarctica. Results from an earlier phase of the telescope, called AMANDA-B10, demonstrate…

Forecasting optical turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere has been an ambitious challenge for the astronomical scientific community for several decades. While earlier research primarily focused on whether it was possible to predict optical…

Temporal fluctuations of the atmospheric piston are critical for interferometers as they determine their sensitivity. We characterize an instrumental set-up, termed the piston scope, that aims at measuring the atmospheric time constant,…

The main goal of this work is the analysis of new approaches to the study of the properties of astronomical sites. In particular, satellite data measuring aerosols have recently been proposed as a useful technique for site characterization…

Existing and planned radiotelescopes working in the millimetre (mm) and sub-millimetre wavelengths range provide the possibility to be used for atmospheric line observations. To scrutinize this potential, we outline the differences and…

Recent Sternberg astronomical institute activities on site testing programs and technique are presented. The main attention is paid to the new modifications of MASS and DIMM data processing developed by SAI team. Four important unresolved…

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…

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…

In this article, we present a detailed analysis of the statistical properties of seeing for the Muztagh-ata site which is the candidate site for hosting future Chinese Large Optical/infrared Telescope (LOT) project. The measurement was…

Research activities during the last decade have shown the strong potential of photonic devices to greatly simplify ground based and space borne astronomical instruments and to improve their performance. We focus specifically on the…

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…

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…

ASTEP South is the first phase of the ASTEP project (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets). The instrument is a fixed 10 cm refractor with a 4kx4k CCD camera in a thermalized box, pointing continuously a 3.88 degree x 3.88 degree…

The lunar surface is a compelling location for large, distributed optical facilities, with significant advantages over orbital facilities for high spatial resolution astrophysics. The serious development of mission concepts is timely…

Twilight studies have proved to be important tools to analyze the atmospheric structure with interesting consequences on the characterization of astronomical sites. Active discussions on this topic have been recently restarted in connection…

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…