Astronomy Astrophysics Site testing for submillimetre astronomy at Dome C, Antarctica

• Main Authors: P. Tremblin, V. Minier, N. Schneider, G. Al. Dur, M. C. B. Ashley, J. S. Lawrence, D. M. Luong-van, J. W. V. Storey, G. An. Dur, Y. Reinert, C. Veyssiere, C. Walter, P. Ade, P. G. Calisse, Z. Challita, E. Fossat, L. Sabbatini, A. Pellegrini, P. Ricaud, J. Urban
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.296.377; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jacara/Papers/pdf/tre12.pdf

Aims. Over the past few years a major effort has been put into the exploration of potential sites for the deployment of submillimetre astronomical facilities. Amongst the most important sites are Dome C and Dome A on the Antarctic Plateau, and the Chajnantor area in Chile. In this context, we report on measurements of the sky opacity at 200 μm over a period of three years at the French-Italian station, Concordia, at Dome C, Antarctica. We also present some solutions to the challenges of operating in the harsh polar environment. Methods. The 200-μm atmospheric opacity was measured with a tipper. The forward atmospheric model MOLIERE (Microwave Observation LIne Estimation and REtrieval) was used to calculate the atmospheric transmission and to evaluate the precipitable water vapour content (PWV) from the observed sky opacity. These results have been compared with satellite measurements from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on Metop-A, with balloon humidity sondes and with results obtained by a