Related papers: Worldwide site comparison for submillimetre astron…
We report on the status of the Tierras Observatory, a refurbished 1.3-m ultra-precise fully-automated photometer located at the F. L. Whipple Observatory atop Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. Tierras is designed to limit systematic errors, notably…
Atmospheric emission is a dominant source of disturbance in ground-based astronomy at mm wavelengths. The Antarctic plateau is recognized to be an ideal site for mm and sub-mm observations, and the French/Italian base of Dome C is among the…
Weak lensing observations have the potential to be even more powerful than cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations in constraining cosmological parameters. However, the practical limits to weak lensing observations are not known.…
We evaluate the effect that radome transparency has on atmospheric opacity measurements performed by the skydip technique. We show that, except at rather high opacities, it is not sufficient to ignore losses in the radome (or "window")…
Further analysis has been made on the millimeter and submillimeter-wave (100-1600 GHz or 3 mm - 188 micron) atmospheric opacity data taken with the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) at Pampa la Bola, 4800 m above sea level in northern…
At frequencies below 1 Hz, fluctuations in atmospheric emission in the Chajnantor region in northern Chile are the primary source of interference for bolometric millimeter-wave observations. This paper focuses on characterizing these…
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 fields of cosmic ray astrophysics, gamma-ray astrophysics, and neutrino astrophysics have diverged somewhat. But for the air showers in the GeV and TeV energy ranges, the ground-based detector techniques have considerable overlaps. VHE…
Horizontal and Upward air-showers are suppressed by deep atmosphere opacity and by the Earth shadows. In such noise-free horizontal and upward directions rare Ultra High Cosmic rays and rarer neutrino induced air-showers may shine, mostly…
SOFIA is a 2.5 meter airborne infrared telescope, mounted in a Boeing 747SP aircraft. Due to the large size of the telescope, only a few degrees of azimuth are available at the telescope bearing. This means the heading of the aircraft is…
We report on a pilot study of a novel observing technique, defocussed transmission spectroscopy, and its application to the study of exoplanet atmospheres using ground-based platforms. Similar to defocussed photometry, defocussed…
A Low Humidity and Temperature Profiling (LHATPRO) microwave radiometer, manufactured by Radiometer Physics GmbH (RPG), is used to monitor sky conditions over ESO's Paranal observatory in support of VLT science operations. In addition to…
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…
The characterization of rocky, Earth-like planets is an important goal for future large ground- and space-based telescopes. In support of developing an efficient observational strategy, we have applied Bayesian statistical inference to…
Ground-based astronomy has to correct astronomical observations from the impact of the atmospheric transparency and its variability.The current objective of several observatories is to achieve a sub-percent level monitoring of atmospheric…
The millimeter/sub-millimeter (mm/sub-mm) sky remains a rich but under-explored frontier for transient and variable phenomena. A wide-field, high-sensitivity instrument with a large aperture and degree-scale field of view would open this…
The zodiacal foreground for a highly sensitive space infrared interferometer is predicted for various observing locations. For the predictions we use a model that was derived from measurements of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). We…
The TeV gamma ray sky is observable by recording footprints of extensive air showers with an array of particle detectors. In the northern hemisphere there are currently two projects employing this technique: The HAWC gamma ray observatory…
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an airborne astronomical observatory comprised of a 2.5-meter telescope mounted in the aft section of a Boeing 747SP aircraft. During routine operations, several instruments…
For a systematic assessment of submillimeter observing conditions at different sites, we constructed tipping radiometers to measure the broad band atmospheric transparency in the window around 350 $\mu$m wavelength. The tippers were…