Related papers: Southern Africa CTA Site Proposal

The 352 MHz Westerbork In the Southern Hemisphere (WISH) survey is the southern extension of the WENSS, covering 1.60 sr between -9 < DEC < -26 to a limiting flux density of ~18 mJy (5sigma). Due to the very low elevation of the…

Current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for Very High Energy $\gamma$-ray astrophysics are pointing instruments with a Field of View up to a few tens of sq deg. We propose to build an array of two non-steerable (drift) telescopes.…

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10 meter telescope operating at mm wavelengths. It has recently completed a three-band survey covering 2500 sq. degrees. One of the survey's main goals is to detect galaxy clusters using Sunyaev-Zeldovich…

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) is a large field of view ($\sim$2sr) instrument sensitive to very-high energy gamma rays ($\sim$0.5-100TeV). It is located in central Mexico (19$^\circ$N) and has a high duty cycle…

The summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the area near Cerro Chajnantor in Chile, and the South Pole are sites of large millimeter or submillimeter wavelength telescopes. We have placed 860 GHz sky brightness monitors at all three sites and…

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is one of the three arrays of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) currently in operation. It is composed of four 12-meter telescopes and a 28-meter one, and is sensitive to gamma…

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next high-energy gamma-ray observatory. Selection of the sites, one in each hemisphere, is not obvious since several factors have to be taken into account. Among them, and probably the most…

The Cherenkov Telescope Array is the main global project of ground-based gamma-ray astronomy for the coming decades. Performance will be significantly improved relative to present instruments, allowing a new insight into the high-energy…

Spectroscopic observations have been carried out for galaxies in the Milky Way with the 1.9 m telescope of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). The galaxies were selected from a deep optical galaxy search covering 266<l<296…

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) ATLAS is an optical ugriz survey aiming to cover ~4700deg^2 of the Southern sky to similar depths as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). From reduced images and object catalogues provided by the Cambridge…

Very-high-energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) gamma-rays provide a unique view of the non-thermal universe, tracing the most violent and energetic phenomena at work inside our Galaxy and beyond. The latest results of the H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey…

In these proceedings I discuss a range of surveys that are currently underway at optical, near-infrared and far-infrared wavelengths that have large components accessible to both the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the Meer…

The level of the night sky background light at La Palma and Namibia was determined, with emphasis on the wavelength region and solid angle coverage relevant for the operation of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The dependence of…

Sky conditions in the remote, dry north-western interior of South Africa are now the subject of considerable interest in view of the imminent construction of numerous solar power plants in this area. Furthermore, the part of this region in…

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…

We have compiled a sample of 234 ultra-steep-spectrum (USS) selected radio sources in order to find high-redshift radio galaxies. The sample covers the declination range -40deg < DEC < -30deg in the overlap region between the 1400-MHz NRAO…

The TBT project is being developed under ESA's General Studies and Technology Programme (GSTP), and shall implement a test-bed for the validation of an autonomous optical observing system in a realistic scenario within the Space Situational…

As TeV gamma-ray astronomy progresses into the era of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), instantaneously following up on gamma-ray transients is becoming more important than ever. To this end, a worldwide network of Imaging Atmospheric…

The seven-dish KAT-7 array was built as an engineering test-bed for the 64-dish Karoo Array Telescope, known as MeerKAT, which is the South African precursor of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). KAT-7 and MeerKAT are located close to the…

A 10 meter diameter submillimeter-wave telescope has been proposed for the NSF Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Current evidence indicates that the South Pole is the best submillimeter-wave telescope site among all existing or proposed…