Antarctic Survey Telescope 3-3: Overview, System Performance and Preliminary Observations at Yaoan, Yunnan

• Published in: Universe
• Main Authors: Tianrui Sun, Xiaoyan Li, Lei Hu, Kelai Meng, Zijian Han, Maokai Hu, Zhengyang Li, Haikun Wen, Fujia Du, Shihai Yang, Bozhong Gu, Xiangyan Yuan, Yun Li, Huihui Wang, Lei Liu, Zhenxi Zhu, Xuehai Huang, Chengming Lei, Lifan Wang, Xuefeng Wu
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2022
• Subjects: wide-field survey; transient observations; robotic optical telescope; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/universe8060303

The third Antarctic Survey Telescope array instrument at Dome A in Antarctica, the AST3-3 telescope, has been in commissioning from March 2021. We deployed AST3-3 at the Yaoan astronomical station in Yunnan Province for an automatic time-domain survey and follow-up observations with an optimised observation and protection system. The telescope system of AST3-3 is similar to that of AST3-1 and AST3-2, except that it is equipped with a 14 K × 10 K QHY411 CMOS camera. AST3-3 has a field of view of 1.65∘×1.23∘ and is currently using the g band filter. During commissioning at Yaoan, AST3-3 aims to conduct an extragalactic transient survey, coupled with prompt follow-ups of opportunity targets. In this paper, we present the architecture of the AST3-3 automatic observation system. We demonstrate the data processing of observations by representatives SN 2022eyw and GRB 210420B.