Precipitable Water Vapor above Dome A, Antarctica, Determined from Diffuse Optical Sky Spectra

Abstract

about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera

“…Customized filters or spectrographs with a moderately high resolving power can minimize the contamination from aurora and airglow emissions. We refer to Sims et al (2012b) for a more comprehensive review of airglow and aurorae as dominant sources of sky brightness in Antarctica sites.…”

“…The extremely thin turbulent boundary layer measured to be 13.9 m near the ground at Dome A enables a free-of-atmosphere observing condition for a telescope on a small tower (Bonner et al 2010). Some other advantages include the low sky brightness measured in the SDSS i-band (Zou et al 2010), the outstanding low cloud coverage compared to other astronomical sites (Zou et al 2010), and the extremely low atmospheric water vapor content (Sims et al 2012b). Additionally, the airglow and aurorae at Dome A in the optical and near-IR range during the 2009 winter season have been characterized by Sims et al (2012b), and only 2% of the time during 2008 winter season (solar minimum) have shown strong auroral events in the i-band (Zou et al 2010).…”

“…Some other advantages include the low sky brightness measured in the SDSS i-band (Zou et al 2010), the outstanding low cloud coverage compared to other astronomical sites (Zou et al 2010), and the extremely low atmospheric water vapor content (Sims et al 2012b). Additionally, the airglow and aurorae at Dome A in the optical and near-IR range during the 2009 winter season have been characterized by Sims et al (2012b), and only 2% of the time during 2008 winter season (solar minimum) have shown strong auroral events in the i-band (Zou et al 2010). Dome A also has exceptional transmission and multi-day persistent superlative observing conditions in the terahertz regime (Yang et al 2010).…”

First multiband atmospheric extinction in Antarctica PAIX monitoring the South Polar Sky

“…Dome C (75 • 03 S, 123 • 20 E) is located on one of the highest summits of the polar plateau in Antarctica, at an altitude of 3233 m, and temperature variations between −20 • C in summertime and −80 • C in wintertime. The extremely cold temperatures, whatever the relative humidity, insure a very low water vapour content (wvc is the thickness of condensed water in the air column above the site) of 0.52-0.64 mm at Dome C (Valenziano & Dall'Oglio 1999), 0.45 ± 0.25 mm throughout the year (Smythe & Jackson 1977) at the US Amundsen-Scott station, and 0.13 mm at Dome A (Sims et al 2012) during the wintertime. These extremely low wvc values make the sites of high Antarctica plateau the best groundbased astronomical observatories for light transmission in the whole IR-mm bandwidth.…”

Study on the optics of the 5 meter Dome A Terahertz Explorer (DATE5) for Antarctica

“…INTRODUCTION Terahertz astronomical observation, although a powerful probe into cold and dark matters in the universe such as interstellar dust and molecular clouds [1], is largely hindered by the strong absorption imposed by Earth's atmosphere. Dome A, Antarctica is one of the best sites on the earth for terahertz astronomical observations due to its extremely low water vapor content in the atmosphere [2][3][4]. To exploit this unique site condition, a 5 m Dome A Terahertz Explorer (DATE5) is proposed, which is a 5 m-aperture fully steerable telescope initially operating at the dual bands of 350 m (band 1) and 200 m (band 2) under remote control.…”