Weather at selected astronomical sites – an overview of five atmospheric parameters

Hellemeier, Joschua; Yang, Rui; Sarazin, M.; Hickson, Paul

doi:10.1093/mnras/sty2982

Cited by 28 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Another recent study by Hellemeier et al (2019) which uses again FriOWL on site testing compiled astroclimatological data from 15 cites distributed all around the world for a period of 45 years. They conclude that having a long-term dataset combined with seasonal variation could elevate the importance of the astronomical observatory sites.…”

Section: Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Site Selection for Astronomy

Aksaker

Yerli

Erdoğan

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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A global site selection for astronomy was performed with 1 km spatial resolution (∼ 1 Giga pixel in size) using long term and up-to-date datasets to classify the entire terrestrial surface on the Earth. Satellite instruments are used to get the following datasets of Geographical Information System (GIS) layers: Cloud Coverage, Digital Elevation Model, Artificial Light, Precipitable Water Vapor, Aerosol Optical Depth, Wind Speed and Land Use -Land Cover. A Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) technique is applied to these datasets creating four different series where each layer will have a specific weight. We introduce for the first time a "Suitability Index for Astronomical Sites" namely, SIAS. This index can be used to find suitable locations and to compare different sites or observatories. Mid-western Andes in South America and Tibetan Plateau in west China were found to be the best in all SIAS Series. Considering all the series, less than 3 % of all terrestrial surfaces are found to be the best regions to establish an astronomical observatory. In addition to this, only approximately 10 % of all current observatories are located in good locations in all SIAS series. Amateurs, institutions or countries aiming to construct an observatory could create a short-list of potential site locations using layout of SIAS values for each country without spending time and budget. The outcomes and datasets of this study has been made available through a web site, namely "Astro GIS Database" on www.astrogis.org.

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Section: Site Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Site Selection for Astronomy

Aksaker

Yerli

Erdoğan

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The Amundsen-Scott South Pole station's astronomical science activities have obtained a series of achievements. It found that the infrared sky emission was lower than typically found at mid-latitude sites in 1-2 orders of magnitude [1][2][3][4] and the atmosphere held extremely low precipitable water vapor [5]. The expectation of weak free-atmosphere turbulence was also confirmed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

The Antarctic Astronomical Observations Intelligent Support Equipment “Dome A” Site-Testing Observatory: Electric Power Generation and Control Systems

Fang¹,

Chen²,

Zhang³

et al. 2020

Energies

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AAOISE, the Antarctic Astronomical Observations Intelligent Support Equipment, is an autonomous control equipment serving for energy support and environment thermal preservation, which is used for astronomical science observations in the Antarctic “Dome A”. It was deployed to “Dome A” and had an unattended run until now. The AAOISE stressed on the ways to adapt to adverse circumstances of “Dome A” and to have as little influence on the environment as possible. Its shape and structure are fully qualified for transportation and thermal insulation demands. The power generation and control systems are designed to provide continuous power and heat. Its communication system can support high-reliability data transmission and communications. It offers a possibility for developing “Dome A” scientific activities and remote monitoring of the running situation of the science instruments. This paper presents a detailed description of the power generation, power control, thermal management, instrument interface, and communications systems for AAOISE.

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“…It can be seen that the transparency of the atmosphere on the Suffa plateau cannot be compared with the Eastern Pamirs at all and is not suitable for good observations even at 230 GHz. An additional bad thing for Suffa and the nearby Maidanak (~2600 m altitude) is the heavy fractional cloud cover from November to May 12 , in contrast to the atmosphere transparency without clouds. Nonetheless, nowadays the ground based radio astronomy is in great need of very large diameter instruments at 3 mm wavelength.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the benefits of the Eastern Pamirs for sub-mm astronomy

Lapinov

Lapinova

Petrov

et al. 2020

Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy X

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Thanks to the first mm studies on the territory of the former USSR in the early 1960s and succeeding sub-mm measurements in the 1970s -early 1980s at wavelengths up to 0.34 mm, a completely unique astroclimate was revealed in the Eastern Pamirs, only slightly inferior to the available conditions on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile and Mauna Kea. Due to its high plateau altitude (4300 -4500 m) surrounded from all sides by big (~7000 m) air-drying icy mountains and remoteness from oceans this area has the lowest relative humidity in the former USSR and extremely high atmospheric stability. In particular, direct measurements of precipitated water vapor in the winter months showed typical pwv=0.8 -0.9 mm with sometimes of 0.27 mm. To validate previous studies and to compare them with results for other similar regions we performed opacity calculations at mm -sub-mm wavelengths for different sites in the Eastern Pamirs, Tibet, Indian Himalayas, APEX, ALMA, JCM, LMT and many others. To do this we integrate radiative transfer equations using the output of NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office model GEOS-FPIT for more than 12 years. We confirm previous conclusions about exceptionally good astroclimate in the Eastern Pamirs. Due to its geographical location, small infrastructure and the absence of any interference in radio and optical bands, this makes the Eastern Pamirs the best place in the Eastern Hemisphere for both optical and sub-mm astronomy.

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Weather at selected astronomical sites – an overview of five atmospheric parameters

Cited by 28 publications

References 25 publications

Global Site Selection for Astronomy

Global Site Selection for Astronomy

The Antarctic Astronomical Observations Intelligent Support Equipment “Dome A” Site-Testing Observatory: Electric Power Generation and Control Systems

On the benefits of the Eastern Pamirs for sub-mm astronomy

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