Related papers: Atmospheric scintillation at Dome C, Antarctica: i…
This paper analyses 3.5 years of site testing data obtained at Dome C, Antarctica, based on measurements obtained with three DIMMs located at three different elevations. Basic statistics of the seeing and the isoplanatic angle are given, as…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Atmospherical mesoscale models can offer unique potentialities to characterize and discriminate potential astronomical sites. Our team has recently completely validated the Meso-Nh model above Dome C (Lascaux et al. 2009, 2010). Using all…
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…
Scintillation noise due to the Earth's turbulent atmosphere can be a dominant noise source in high-precision astronomical photometry when observing bright targets from the ground. Here we describe the phenomenon of scintillation from its…
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…
Dome C in Antarctica is a promising site for photometric observations thanks to the continuous night during the Antarctic winter and favorable weather conditions. We developed instruments to assess the quality of this site for photometry in…
In a recent paper the authors presented an extended study aiming at simulating the classical meteorological parameters and the optical turbulence at Dome C during the winter with the atmospherical mesoscale model Meso-NH. A statistical…
We present long term site testing statistics obtained at Dome C, Antarctica with various experiments deployed within the Astroconcordia programme since 2003. We give values of integrated turbulence parameters in the visible at ground level…
Atmospheric scintillation caused by optical turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere can be the dominant source of noise in ground-based photometric observations of bright targets, which is a particular concern for ground-based exoplanet…
Scintillation noise is a major limitation of ground base photometric precision. An extensive dataset of stellar scintillation collected at 11 astronomical sites world-wide with MASS instruments was used to estimate the scintillation noise…
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…
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…
These last years ground-based astronomy has been looking towards Antarctica, especially its summits and the internal continental plateau where the optical turbulence (OT) appears to be confined in a shallow layer close to the surface.…
The atmospheric properties above three sites (Dome C, Dome A and the South Pole) on the Internal Antarctic Plateau are investigated for astronomical applications using the monthly median of the analyses from ECMWF (the European Centre for…
We report site testing results obtained in night-time during the polar autumn and winter at Dome C. These results were collected during the first Concordia winterover by A. Agabi. They are based upon seeing and isoplanatic angle monitoring,…
We present a reanalysis of several years of DIMM data at the site of Dome C, Antarctica, to provide measurements of the coherence time $\tau_0$. Statistics and seasonal behaviour of $\tau_0$ are given at two heights above the ground, 3m and…