Antarctica Schmidt telescopes

Antarctica Schmidt telescopes
Alternative namesThe Antarctic Schmidt/Survey Telescopes
Location(s)Antarctica
Coordinates80°25′S 77°07′E / 80.42°S 77.12°E / -80.42; 77.12
Location of Antarctica Schmidt telescopes

The Antarctica Schmidt Telescopes project (also known as Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3)) is a joint project between Texas A&M University (TAMU) and the Beijing Astronomical Observatory to build three small (50cm aperture) wide-field telescopes at the Antarctic Kunlun Station near Dome A in Antarctica; Lifan Wang at TAMU is the main instigator of the project. [1][2][3]

These telescopes will take advantage of the low background and the long Antarctic nights to provide high-accuracy photometric time series for finding extrasolar planets, and to observe wide fields in the infrared to look for new supernovae.

The first of three Antarctic Survey Telescopes AST3-1, was installed at the Antarctic Kunlun Station in April 2012. 2nd and 3rd telescopes will be installed in 2013 and 2014 [4]

An update was published indicating that the first telescope operated for only a few weeks in 2012 before a power failure, and was repaired in 2013, but the CCD controller proceeded to fail after further data collection. The AST3-2 unit has seen several design revisions to improve reliability in the harsh Antarctic environment, and was tested over the 2013-2014 winter in Mohe, China before being sent to the field.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes". physics.tamu.edu. Archived from the original on 2009-08-21.
  2. ^ "China to build stronger telescope network in South Pole". China.org.cn. July 24, 2009.
  3. ^ "Optical system of the Three Antarctic Survey Telescopes" (PDF). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. December 22, 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-05-10.
  4. ^ "China installs large Antarctic survey telescope". People's Daily Online. April 9, 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-15.
  5. ^ "Updates of AST3 Survey" (PDF). www.astronomy.scar.org. 2013-07-25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10.
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