Field optimization and CCD data simulation for the antarctic International Concordia Explorer Telescope (ICE‐T)

• Published in: Astronomische Nachrichten
• Main Authors: Fügner, D., Fuhrmann, C., Strassmeier, K.G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2009
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asna.200811189; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fasna.200811189; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/asna.200811189

Abstract We performed extensive data simulations for the planned ultra‐wide‐field, high‐precision photometric telescope ICE‐T (International Concordia Explorer Telescope). ICE‐T consists of two 60 cm‐aperture Schmidt telescopes with a joint field of view simultaneously in two photometric bandpasses. Two CCD cameras, each with a single 10.3k × 10.3k thinned back‐illuminated device, would image a sky field of 65 square degrees. Given a location of the telescope at Dome C on the East Antarctic Plateau, we searched for the star fields that best exploit the technical capabilities of the instrument and the site. We considered the effects of diurnal air mass and refraction variations, solar and lunar interference, interstellar absorption, overexposing of bright stars and ghosts, crowding by background stars, and the ratio of dwarf to giant stars in the field. Using NOMAD, SSA, Tycho‐2 and 2MASS‐based stellar positions and BVIJH magnitudes for these fields, we simulated the effects of the telescope's point‐spread‐function, the integration, and the co‐addition times. Simulations of transit light curves are presented for the selected star fields and convolved with the expected instrumental characteristics. For the brightest stars, we showed that ICE‐T should be capable of detecting a 2 R Earth Super Earth around a G2 solar‐type star, as well as an Earth around an M0‐star – if these targets were as abundant as hot Jupiters. Simultaneously, the telescope would monitor the host star's surface activity in an astrophysically interpretable manner (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)