The near-IR and mid-IR sky background at the South Pole

• Main Authors: Michael Ashley Joint, Michael C. B. Ashley
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.27.3406; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mgb/Antbib/pasp97_mcba.ps.gz

. At typical ground-based observatories, the thermal emission from the sky and the telescope in the near- to mid-IR far exceeds (by factors of 10 3 to 10 4 ) the natural background limit due to zodiacal emission and scattered sunlight. Furthermore, the fluctuations in the thermal emission limit the extent to which its effect can be subtracted. At the South Pole, we have the right ingredients for a superb near- to mid-IR (and sub-mm) site: its pressure altitude is comparable to Mauna Kea and Chilean sites, it has less precipitable water vapor, and it is much colder. It remains to quantify the improvement, to measure the temporal stability of the emission, and finally, to conduct observations of astronomical sources with a state-of-the-art instrument so as to unequivocally demonstrate the advantages. This paper summarizes the considerable progress that has been made towards these goals in the last three years. 1. Introduction Since 1994 there has been a vigorous program at the US .