Related papers: Astronomy from Dome A in Antarctica

Antarctica provides a unique environment for astronomy. The cold, dry and stable air found above the high plateau, as well as the pure ice below, offers new opportunities across the photon & particle spectrum. The summits of the plateau…

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…

Preliminary site testing datasets suggest that Dome C in Antarctica is one of the best sites on Earth for astronomical observations in the 200 to 500 micron regime, i.e. for far-infrared (FIR) and submillimetre (submm) astronomy. We present…

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…

Atmospheric transmission from Dome A, Antarctica, presents new possibilities in the field of terahertz astronomy, where space telescopes have been the only observational tools until now. Using atmospheric transmission measurements from Dome…

Over the past few years a major effort has been put into the exploration of potential sites for the deployment of submillimetre astronomical facilities. Amongst the most important sites are Dome C and Dome A on the Antarctic Plateau, and…

Due to the recent interest shown by astronomers towards the Antarctic Plateau as a potential site for large astronomical facilities, we assisted in the last years to a strengthening of site testing activities in this region, particularly at…

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…

The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, NIR, and THz astronomical observations. GATTINI was a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led…

The 0.5\,m Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3) were designed for time-domain optical/infrared astronomy. They are located in Dome~A, Antarctica, where they can take advantage of the continuous dark time during winter. Since the site is…

Context. Dome Fuji, the second highest region on the Antarctic plateau, is expected to have some of the best astronomical seeing on Earth. However, site testing at Dome Fuji is still in its very early stages. Aims. To investigate the…

Seeing, the angular size of stellar images blurred by atmospheric turbulence, is a critical parameter used to assess the quality of astronomical sites. Median values at the best mid-latitude sites are generally in the range of…

Preliminary site testing at Dome C (Antarctica) is presented, using both Automatic Weather Station (AWS) meteorological data (1986-1993) and Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV) measurements made by the authors. A comparison with South Pole and…

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.…

The cold, dry and stable air above the summits of the Antarctic plateau provides the best ground-based observing conditions from optical to sub-mm wavelengths to be found on the Earth. PILOT is a proposed 2 m telescope, to be built at Dome…

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. Conditions at Dome C are known to be exceptional for astronomy. The seeing…

The Antarctic Multiband Infrared Camera (AMICA) is a double channel camera operating in the 2-28 micron infrared domain (KLMNQ bands) that will allow to characterize and exploit the exceptional advantages for Astronomy, expected from Dome C…

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…

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…

Infrared time-domain surveys remain significantly underdeveloped compared with their optical counterparts. We have developed the Antarctic Infrared Binocular Telescope (AIRBT) to study the dynamic infrared sky at Dome A, Antarctica, taking…