Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 110:306–316, 1998 March 1998. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. Antarctic Fiber Optic Spectrometer

ABSTRACT. The Antarctic Fiber Optic Spectrometer (AFOS) is one of a suite of instruments of the Automated Astrophysical Site Testing Observatory (AASTO) installed at the South Pole in 1996 December. In 1998, the AFOS will be attached to an altitude-azimuth mount and commence regular astronomical obs...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Maxime Boccas, Michael C. B. Ashley, André Phillips, Anthony Schinckel, John W. V. Storey
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1997
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.147.8481
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mcba/pubs/boccas98.pdf
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Summary:ABSTRACT. The Antarctic Fiber Optic Spectrometer (AFOS) is one of a suite of instruments of the Automated Astrophysical Site Testing Observatory (AASTO) installed at the South Pole in 1996 December. In 1998, the AFOS will be attached to an altitude-azimuth mount and commence regular astronomical observations. In the years 1998–2000, the AASTO will be moved to other remote locations, high on the Antarctic plateau, in order to complete the site testing campaign. The AFOS experiment consists of a 30 cm Newtonian telescope injecting light into a 45 m length of optical fibers that feed a UV-visible (200–840 nm) grating spectrograph inside the warm shelter. In this paper we describe the instrument and the first results. The main requirement of the design was reliable operation in an extremely cold environment, without maintenance, for 12 months. This has been achieved despite the very low power (approximately 7 W) available to run the instrument. 1.