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]
| Alternative names | The Antarctic Schmidt/Survey Telescopes |
|---|---|
| Part of | Kunlun Station  |
| Location(s) | Antarctica |
| Coordinates | 80°25′S 77°07′E / 80.42°S 77.12°E |
| Organization | Beijing Astronomical Observatory Texas A&M University |
| Telescope style | optical telescope |
  Location of Antarctica Schmidt telescopes | |
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
editReferences
edit- ^ "Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes". physics.tamu.edu. Archived from the original on 2009-08-21.
- ^ "China to build stronger telescope network in South Pole". China.org.cn. July 24, 2009.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "China installs large Antarctic survey telescope". People's Daily Online. April 9, 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-15.
- ^ "Updates of AST3 Survey" (PDF). www.astronomy.scar.org. 2013-07-25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10.
