Progress and Results from the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR)

Abstract

In 2008 January the 24th Chinese expedition team successfully deployed the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) to Dome A, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau. CSTAR consists of four 14.5 cm optical telescopes, each with a different filter (g, r, i and open) and has a 4.5 • × 4.5 • field of view (FOV). Based on the CSTAR data, initial statistics of astronomical observational site quality and light curves of variable objects were obtained. To reach higher photometric quality, we are continuing to work to overcome the effects of uneven cirrus cloud cirrus, optical "ghosts" and intra-pixel sensitivity. The snow surface stability is also tested for further astronomical observational instrument and for glaciology studies.Due to the extremely cold, dry, calm, thin atmosphere and the absence of light and air pollution, we can obtain a low infrared background, new observation windows, and high quality photometric images from the Antarctic Plateau (Burton 2010). Over the long polar night, the observation of high quality, long-baseline uninterrupted time-series 231

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

“…In addition, the Antarctic continent has the cleanest air on Earth, with the lowest atmospheric aerosol concentration and negligible artificial light pollution [17]. Dome A is located at the highest point in Antarctica at 77.56 • E and 80.367 • S , with an elevation of 4093 m ice tap, which has many advantages for astronomical observations [18,19], such as extreme cold temperatures and low absolute humidity on Earth [20][21][22]. The Antarctic Survey Telescope (AST3) series includes three large FoV and high photometric precision 50/68 cm modified Schmidt telescopes [23,24].…”