Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium
Site conditions at the South Pole have been shown to be exceptionally favourable for infrared astronomy. The sky brightness between 2.3 and 14 um is typically between 20 and 100 times lower than at temperate sites, and the mid-infrared sky stability is extraordinarily good. Furthermore it appears th...
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GCA-Verlag; Herdecke, Germany
1998
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ftunswworks:oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/39148 2023-05-15T13:48:45+02:00 Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium Storey, John Burton, Michael Ashley, Michael 1998 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/39148 EN eng GCA-Verlag; Herdecke, Germany http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/39148 metadata only access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ CC-BY-NC-ND urn:ISBN:3928973959 3rd Cologne-Zermatt Symposium: The Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium, Zermatt, Switzerland conference paper http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794 1998 ftunswworks 2022-08-09T07:35:38Z Site conditions at the South Pole have been shown to be exceptionally favourable for infrared astronomy. The sky brightness between 2.3 and 14 um is typically between 20 and 100 times lower than at temperate sites, and the mid-infrared sky stability is extraordinarily good. Furthermore it appears that almost all of the seeing degradation is confined to the lowest 100 metres of the atmosphere where it can readily be corrected with low-order adaptive optics. It is probable that conditions at Dome A and Dome C, higher on the Antarctic plateau, are even better. Because of these very unusual conditions even a modest-sized telescope can, at some wave-lengths, achieve better sensitivity levels than any other ground-based facility. We propose the construction of SPIRIT, the South Pole InfraRed Imaging Telescope, a 2.5 metre class, wide-field, IR-optimised telescope. Particular areas in which SPIRIT will be able to make important contributions include population studies of star formation regions at 3.5um, molecular hydrogen observations at 2.4um, PAH studies at 3.3um and searches for protostars in the mid infrared. The challenges of working in Antarctica will be described as well as the efforts currently underway to obtain comprehensive data on site conditions across the plateau. Conference Object Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South pole South pole UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks Antarctic South Pole The Antarctic |
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Open Polar |
collection |
UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks |
op_collection_id |
ftunswworks |
language |
English |
description |
Site conditions at the South Pole have been shown to be exceptionally favourable for infrared astronomy. The sky brightness between 2.3 and 14 um is typically between 20 and 100 times lower than at temperate sites, and the mid-infrared sky stability is extraordinarily good. Furthermore it appears that almost all of the seeing degradation is confined to the lowest 100 metres of the atmosphere where it can readily be corrected with low-order adaptive optics. It is probable that conditions at Dome A and Dome C, higher on the Antarctic plateau, are even better. Because of these very unusual conditions even a modest-sized telescope can, at some wave-lengths, achieve better sensitivity levels than any other ground-based facility. We propose the construction of SPIRIT, the South Pole InfraRed Imaging Telescope, a 2.5 metre class, wide-field, IR-optimised telescope. Particular areas in which SPIRIT will be able to make important contributions include population studies of star formation regions at 3.5um, molecular hydrogen observations at 2.4um, PAH studies at 3.3um and searches for protostars in the mid infrared. The challenges of working in Antarctica will be described as well as the efforts currently underway to obtain comprehensive data on site conditions across the plateau. |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Storey, John Burton, Michael Ashley, Michael |
spellingShingle |
Storey, John Burton, Michael Ashley, Michael Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
author_facet |
Storey, John Burton, Michael Ashley, Michael |
author_sort |
Storey, John |
title |
Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
title_short |
Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
title_full |
Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
title_fullStr |
Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
title_full_unstemmed |
Antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
title_sort |
antarctic astronomy - its potential importance for research into the interstellar medium |
publisher |
GCA-Verlag; Herdecke, Germany |
publishDate |
1998 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/39148 |
geographic |
Antarctic South Pole The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic South Pole The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South pole South pole |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica South pole South pole |
op_source |
urn:ISBN:3928973959 3rd Cologne-Zermatt Symposium: The Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium, Zermatt, Switzerland |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/39148 |
op_rights |
metadata only access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
_version_ |
1766249664135299072 |