Dome A, Antarctica

• Main Authors: M. G. Burton, X. Cui, N. F. H. Tothill, Geoff Sims, Michael C. B. Ashley, Xiangqun Cui, Xuefei Gong, Zhongwen Hu, Jon S. Lawrence, M. Luong-van, Zhaohui Shang, John W. V. Storey, Nick Tothill, Lifan Wang, Huigen Yang, Ji Yang, Xu Zhou
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: site testing; aurora; sky brightness; sky transparency; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.636.8635; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jacara/Papers/pdf/iaus288/iau288-hrcam_ed.pdf

Abstract. HRCAM (High Resolution CAMera) is a Canon 50D 15-megapixel digital SLR cam-era equipped with a Sigma 4.5 mm f/2.8 fish-eye lens. It was installed at Dome A on the Antarctic plateau in January 2010 and photographs the sky every 15 minutes. Primarily functioning as a site-testing instrument, data obtained from HRCAM provide valuable statistics on cloud cover, sky transparency and the distribution and frequency of auroral activity. We present a first look at data from HRCAM during 2010, including an overview of how we intend to reduce the im-ages. We also demonstrate the potential of stellar photometry by using linear combinations of the in-built Canon RGB filters to convert instrumental magnitudes into the photometric BVR bands.