Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera
The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, near-infrared, and terahertz astronomical observations. Gattini is a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led traverse to Dome A in 2009 January. We present here...
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ftcaltechauth:oai:authors.library.caltech.edu:8rc52-a0r70 2024-06-23T07:45:40+00:00 Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera Yang, Yi Moore, Anna M. Krisciunas, Kevin Wang, Lifan Ashley, Michael C. B. Fu, Jianning Brown, Peter J. Cui, Xiangqun Feng, Long-Long Gong, Xuefei Hu, Zhongwen Lawrence, Jon S. Luong-van, Daniel Riddle, Reed L. Shang, Zhaohui Sims, Geoff Storey, John W. V. Suntzeff, Nicholas B. Tothill, Nick Travouillon, Tony Yang, Huigen Yang, Ji Zhou, Xu Zhu, Zhenxi 2017-07 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc unknown American Astronomical Society https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.10094 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc oai:authors.library.caltech.edu:8rc52-a0r70 eprintid:78129 resolverid:CaltechAUTHORS:20170612-154057957 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Other Astronomical Journal, 154(1), Art. No. 6, (2017-07) methods: data analysis – methods: statistical – site testing – techniques: photometric – telescopes info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2017 ftcaltechauth https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc 2024-06-12T02:25:05Z The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, near-infrared, and terahertz astronomical observations. Gattini is a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led traverse to Dome A in 2009 January. We present here the measurements of sky brightness with the Gattini ultra-large field of view (90° x 90°) in the photometric B-, V-, and R-bands; cloud cover statistics measured during the 2009 winter season; and an estimate of the sky transparency. A cumulative probability distribution indicates that the darkest 10% of the nights at Dome A have sky brightness of S_B = 22.98, S V = 21.86, and S_R = 21.68 mag arcsec^(−2). These values were obtained during the year 2009 with minimum aurora, and they are comparable to the faintest sky brightness at Maunakea and the best sites of northern Chile. Since every filter includes strong auroral lines that effectively contaminate the sky brightness measurements, for instruments working around the auroral lines, either with custom filters or with high spectral resolution instruments, these values could be easily obtained on a more routine basis. In addition, we present example light curves for bright targets to emphasize the unprecedented observational window function available from this ground-based site. These light curves will be published in a future paper. © 2017 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2016 October 30; revised 2017 May 13; accepted 2017 May 15; published 2017 June 13. We thank Shri Kulkarni and Caltech Optical Observatories, Gerard Van Belle, and Chas Beichman for their financial contributions to this project. We are grateful to Xiaofeng Wang, Chao Wu, Ming Yang, Tianmeng Zhang, Yanping Zhang, and Jilin Zhou for helpful discussions. This research is supported by the Chinese PANDA International Polar Year project and the Polar Research Institute of China. The project was funded by the following awards from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs: ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica International Polar Year National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Polar Research Institute of China Caltech Authors (California Institute of Technology) Antarctic Plato ENVELOPE(-54.674,-54.674,-63.433,-63.433) The Antarctic The Astronomical Journal 154 1 6 |
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Open Polar |
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Caltech Authors (California Institute of Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftcaltechauth |
language |
unknown |
topic |
methods: data analysis – methods: statistical – site testing – techniques: photometric – telescopes |
spellingShingle |
methods: data analysis – methods: statistical – site testing – techniques: photometric – telescopes Yang, Yi Moore, Anna M. Krisciunas, Kevin Wang, Lifan Ashley, Michael C. B. Fu, Jianning Brown, Peter J. Cui, Xiangqun Feng, Long-Long Gong, Xuefei Hu, Zhongwen Lawrence, Jon S. Luong-van, Daniel Riddle, Reed L. Shang, Zhaohui Sims, Geoff Storey, John W. V. Suntzeff, Nicholas B. Tothill, Nick Travouillon, Tony Yang, Huigen Yang, Ji Zhou, Xu Zhu, Zhenxi Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
topic_facet |
methods: data analysis – methods: statistical – site testing – techniques: photometric – telescopes |
description |
The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, near-infrared, and terahertz astronomical observations. Gattini is a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led traverse to Dome A in 2009 January. We present here the measurements of sky brightness with the Gattini ultra-large field of view (90° x 90°) in the photometric B-, V-, and R-bands; cloud cover statistics measured during the 2009 winter season; and an estimate of the sky transparency. A cumulative probability distribution indicates that the darkest 10% of the nights at Dome A have sky brightness of S_B = 22.98, S V = 21.86, and S_R = 21.68 mag arcsec^(−2). These values were obtained during the year 2009 with minimum aurora, and they are comparable to the faintest sky brightness at Maunakea and the best sites of northern Chile. Since every filter includes strong auroral lines that effectively contaminate the sky brightness measurements, for instruments working around the auroral lines, either with custom filters or with high spectral resolution instruments, these values could be easily obtained on a more routine basis. In addition, we present example light curves for bright targets to emphasize the unprecedented observational window function available from this ground-based site. These light curves will be published in a future paper. © 2017 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2016 October 30; revised 2017 May 13; accepted 2017 May 15; published 2017 June 13. We thank Shri Kulkarni and Caltech Optical Observatories, Gerard Van Belle, and Chas Beichman for their financial contributions to this project. We are grateful to Xiaofeng Wang, Chao Wu, Ming Yang, Tianmeng Zhang, Yanping Zhang, and Jilin Zhou for helpful discussions. This research is supported by the Chinese PANDA International Polar Year project and the Polar Research Institute of China. The project was funded by the following awards from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs: ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Yang, Yi Moore, Anna M. Krisciunas, Kevin Wang, Lifan Ashley, Michael C. B. Fu, Jianning Brown, Peter J. Cui, Xiangqun Feng, Long-Long Gong, Xuefei Hu, Zhongwen Lawrence, Jon S. Luong-van, Daniel Riddle, Reed L. Shang, Zhaohui Sims, Geoff Storey, John W. V. Suntzeff, Nicholas B. Tothill, Nick Travouillon, Tony Yang, Huigen Yang, Ji Zhou, Xu Zhu, Zhenxi |
author_facet |
Yang, Yi Moore, Anna M. Krisciunas, Kevin Wang, Lifan Ashley, Michael C. B. Fu, Jianning Brown, Peter J. Cui, Xiangqun Feng, Long-Long Gong, Xuefei Hu, Zhongwen Lawrence, Jon S. Luong-van, Daniel Riddle, Reed L. Shang, Zhaohui Sims, Geoff Storey, John W. V. Suntzeff, Nicholas B. Tothill, Nick Travouillon, Tony Yang, Huigen Yang, Ji Zhou, Xu Zhu, Zhenxi |
author_sort |
Yang, Yi |
title |
Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
title_short |
Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
title_full |
Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
title_fullStr |
Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
title_full_unstemmed |
Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera |
title_sort |
optical sky brightness and transparency during the winter season at dome a antarctica from the gattini-all-sky camera |
publisher |
American Astronomical Society |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-54.674,-54.674,-63.433,-63.433) |
geographic |
Antarctic Plato The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Plato The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica International Polar Year National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Polar Research Institute of China |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica International Polar Year National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Polar Research Institute of China |
op_source |
Astronomical Journal, 154(1), Art. No. 6, (2017-07) |
op_relation |
https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.10094 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc oai:authors.library.caltech.edu:8rc52-a0r70 eprintid:78129 resolverid:CaltechAUTHORS:20170612-154057957 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Other |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aa73dc |
container_title |
The Astronomical Journal |
container_volume |
154 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
6 |
_version_ |
1802641888306528256 |