Related papers: Site testing for submillimetre astronomy at Dome C…

The installation and operation of a telescope in Antarctica represent particular challenges, in particular the requirement to operate at extremely cold temperatures, to cope with rapid temperature fluctuations and to prevent frosting.…

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 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,…

The optical turbulence above Dome C in winter is mainly concentrated in the first tens of meters above the ground. Properties of this so-called surface layer (SL) were investigated during the period 2007-2012 by a set of sonics anemometers…

We present an analysis of the meteorological data collected at Dome A, Antarctica by the Kunlun Automated Weather Station, including temperatures and wind speeds at eight elevations above the snow surface between 0m and 14.5m. The average…

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.…

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 area of Chajnantor, at more than 5000 meters altitude in northern Chile, offers unique atmospheric and operational conditions which arguably make it the best site in the world for millimeter, submillimeter, and mid-infrared…

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…

From the South Pole, microthermal turbulence within a narrow surface boundary layer some 200m thick provides the dominant contribution to the astronomical seeing. We present results for the seeing at a wavelength of 2.4um. The narrow…

Dome A in Antarctica has many characteristics that make it an excellent site for astronomical observations, from the optical to the terahertz. Quantitative site testing is still needed to confirm the site's properties. In this paper, we…

During the past decade, a year-round observatory has been established at the geographic South Pole by the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA). CARA has fielded several millimeter- and submillimeter-wave instruments:…

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. The atmospheric conditions at Dome C deliver a high sensitivity, high…

The atmospheric properties above three sites on the Internal Antarctic Plateau are investigated for astronomical applications calculating the monthly median of the analysis-data from ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather…

In two recent papers the mesoscale model Meso-NH, joint with the Astro-Meso-NH package, has been validated at Dome C, Antarctica, for the characterization of the optical turbulence. It has been shown that the meteorological parameters…

We report the observations of the clear sky fraction at the Concordia station during winter 2006, and derive from it the duty cycle for astronomical observations. Performance in duty cycle and observation duration promotes Dome C for…

We present Cryoscope--a new 50 deg$^2$ field-of-view, 1.2 m aperture, $K_{dark}$ survey telescope to be located at Dome C, Antarctica. Cryoscope has an innovative optical-thermal design wherein the entire telescope is cryogenically cooled.…

ASTEP South is the first phase of the ASTEP project that aims to determine the quality of Dome C as a site for future photometric searches for transiting exoplanets and discover extrasolar planets from the Concordia base in Antarctica.…

PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope is a proposed 2.5 m optical/infrared telescope to be located at DomeC on the Antarctic plateau. The atmospheric conditions at Dome C deliver a high sensitivity, high…

In 2008 January the 24th Chinese expedition team successfully deployed the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) to DomeA, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau. CSTAR consists of four 14.5cm optical telescopes, each with a different…