Winter sky brightness and cloud cover at Dome A, Antarctica

• Published in: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
• Main Authors: Moore, Anna M., Yang, Yi, Fu, Jianning, Ashley, Michael C. B., Cui, Xiangqun, Feng, Longlong, Gong, Xuefei, Hu, Zhongwen, Lawrence, Jon S., Luong-Van, Daniel M., Riddle, Reed, Shang, Zhaohui, Sims, Geoff, Storey, John W., Tothill, Nicholas F. H. (R17058), Travouillon, Tony, Wang, Lifan, Yang, Huigen, Yang, Ji, Zhou, Xu, Zhu, Zhenxi
• Other Authors: International Astronomical Union. Symposium (Event place), School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics (Host institution)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: France, International Astronomical Union 2013
• Subjects: XXXXXX - Unknown; winter; sky brightness; surveys; cloud cover; Antarctica; Antarctic; Plato; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/524044; https://doi.org/10.1017/S174392131201664X; http://www.astronomy2012.org/dct/page/1

At the summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A offers an intriguing location for future large scale optical astronomical observatories. The Gattini Dome A project was created to measure the optical sky brightness and large area cloud cover of the winter-time sky above this high altitude Antarctic site. The wide field camera and multi-filter system was installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led traverse to Dome A in January 2008. This automated wide field camera consists of an Apogee U4000 interline CCD coupled to a Nikon fisheye lens enclosed in a heated container with glass window. The system contains a filter mechanism providing a suite of standard astronomical photometric filters (Bessell B, V, R) and a long-pass red filter for the detection and monitoring of airglow emission. The system operated continuously throughout the 2009, and 2011 winter seasons and part-way through the 2010 season, recording long exposure images sequentially for each filter. We have in hand one complete winter-time dataset (2009) returned via a manned traverse. We present here the first measurements of sky brightness in the photometric V band, cloud cover statistics measured so far and an estimate of the extinction.