Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole
The Sun has been observed at South Pole nearly every austral summer since 1979. This experience shows that the duration of uninterrupted observations is limited by clouds to runs of at best ~150 hours. Impressively high duty cycles can be achieved over longer periods. Sky clarity is often superb but...
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1992
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1539299600022577 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1539299600022577 |
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/s1539299600022577 2023-05-15T18:22:01+02:00 Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole Harvey, J 1992 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1539299600022577 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1539299600022577 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Highlights of Astronomy volume 9, page 584-584 ISSN 1539-2996 General Medicine journal-article 1992 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/s1539299600022577 2022-04-07T08:10:32Z The Sun has been observed at South Pole nearly every austral summer since 1979. This experience shows that the duration of uninterrupted observations is limited by clouds to runs of at best ~150 hours. Impressively high duty cycles can be achieved over longer periods. Sky clarity is often superb but even in cloudless conditions, ice crystal precipitation storms can be a problem. Daytime observations of the Sun and bright stars show that visible seeing quality is limited to about 2-3 arc seconds at altitudes of 15-20 degrees. Nearer the zenith, the seeing quality approaches 1 arc second in light wind. Seeing quality appears to vary with wind speed and direction and also diurnally with changing solar illumination of the surface ridges (sastrugi). Seeing is degraded by turbulence in the exceptionally large temperature gradient in the first few hundred meters above the surface. There are suggestions that both daytime and, perhaps more so, nighttime cloudiness increased over the last decade. This may be related to increasing amounts of CO 2 , CH 4 and CFCs in the polar atmosphere. Article in Journal/Newspaper South pole Cambridge University Press (via Crossref) Austral South Pole Sastrugi ENVELOPE(163.683,163.683,-74.617,-74.617) Highlights of Astronomy 9 584 584 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Cambridge University Press (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
topic |
General Medicine |
spellingShingle |
General Medicine Harvey, J Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
topic_facet |
General Medicine |
description |
The Sun has been observed at South Pole nearly every austral summer since 1979. This experience shows that the duration of uninterrupted observations is limited by clouds to runs of at best ~150 hours. Impressively high duty cycles can be achieved over longer periods. Sky clarity is often superb but even in cloudless conditions, ice crystal precipitation storms can be a problem. Daytime observations of the Sun and bright stars show that visible seeing quality is limited to about 2-3 arc seconds at altitudes of 15-20 degrees. Nearer the zenith, the seeing quality approaches 1 arc second in light wind. Seeing quality appears to vary with wind speed and direction and also diurnally with changing solar illumination of the surface ridges (sastrugi). Seeing is degraded by turbulence in the exceptionally large temperature gradient in the first few hundred meters above the surface. There are suggestions that both daytime and, perhaps more so, nighttime cloudiness increased over the last decade. This may be related to increasing amounts of CO 2 , CH 4 and CFCs in the polar atmosphere. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Harvey, J |
author_facet |
Harvey, J |
author_sort |
Harvey, J |
title |
Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
title_short |
Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
title_full |
Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
title_fullStr |
Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
title_full_unstemmed |
Daytime astronomical observing conditions at South Pole |
title_sort |
daytime astronomical observing conditions at south pole |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
1992 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1539299600022577 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1539299600022577 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(163.683,163.683,-74.617,-74.617) |
geographic |
Austral South Pole Sastrugi |
geographic_facet |
Austral South Pole Sastrugi |
genre |
South pole |
genre_facet |
South pole |
op_source |
Highlights of Astronomy volume 9, page 584-584 ISSN 1539-2996 |
op_rights |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/s1539299600022577 |
container_title |
Highlights of Astronomy |
container_volume |
9 |
container_start_page |
584 |
op_container_end_page |
584 |
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1766201361543725056 |