A PROJECT FOR AN INFRARED SYNOPTIC SURVEY FROM ANTARCTICA WITH THE POLAR LARGE TELESCOPE (PLT)

• Main Authors: G. Alecian, K. Belkacem, R. Samadi, D. Valls-gabaud (eds, N. Epchtein, L. Abe, W. Ansorge, M. Langlois, I. Vauglin, S. Argentini, I. Esau, C. David, I. Bryson, G. Dalton, M. C. B. Ashley, J. S. Lawrence
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Infrared Surveys; Telescope; Antarctic Astronomy 1 An Infrared Synoptic Survey from Antarctica Large scale astronomical surveys i; IRAS; 2MASS; DENIS; UKIDSS; Spitzer; VISTA; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.412.7039; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mcba/pubs/epc12.pdf

Abstract. The Polar Large Telescope (PLT) aims at performing a new generation of astronomical Infrared Synoptic Survey from Antarctica (ISSA). It would carry out for the first time large scale periodic imaging surveys at ∼ 0.3 ′′ angular resolution in the short thermal infrared (2-5 µm) range benefiting from the extremely dry, cold, and stable polar atmosphere. The PLT consists of a 2.5m class telescope equipped with a 250–Mpixel infrared camera. The survey would produce diffraction limited images at 2 µm covering a total of ∼ 5000 square degrees, explore the time domain from seconds to years down to mAB=25.5 in Kd, generate alerts of transients and react quickly to alerts from other ground based or space borne facilities. Keywords: