First whole atmosphere night-time seeing measurements at Dome C, Antarctica

• Published in: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
• Main Authors: Agabi, Abdelkrim, Aristidi, Eric, Azouit, Max, Fossat, Eric, Martin, Francois, Sadibekova, Tatiana, Vernin, Jean, Ziad, Aziz
• Other Authors: Laboratoire Universitaire d'Astrophysique de Nice (LUAN), Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) (UNS), COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) (COMUE UCA)-COMUE Université Côte d'Azur (2015-2019) (COMUE UCA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), IPEV
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2006
• Subjects: site testing; [PHYS.ASTR.IM]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00011238; https://hal.science/hal-00011238/document; https://hal.science/hal-00011238/file/ms.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1086/498728

International audience We report site testing results obtained in night-time during the polar autumn and winter at Dome C. These results were collected during the first Concordia winterover by A. Agabi. They are based upon seeing and isoplanatic angle monitoring, as well as in-situ balloon measurements 2 of the refractive index structure constant profiles Cn (h). Atmosphere is divided into two regions: (i) a 36 m high surface layer responsible of 87% of the turbulence and (ii) a very stable free atmosphere above with a median seeing of 0.36±0.19 arcsec at an elevation of h = 30 m. The median seeing measured with a DIMM placed on top of a 8.5 m high tower is 1.3±0.8 arcsec.