SKY BRIGHTNESS AND TRANSPARENCY IN THE i-BAND AT DOME A, ANTARCTICA

The i-band observing conditions at Dome A on the Antarctic plateau have been investigated using data acquired during 2008 with the Chinese Small Telescope Array. The sky brightness, variations in atmospheric transparency, cloud cover, and the presence of aurorae are obtained from these images. The median sky brightness of moonless clear nights is 20.5 mag arcsec−2 in the SDSS i band at the south celestial pole (which includes a contribution of about 0.06 mag from diffuse Galactic light). The median over all Moon phases in the Antarctic winter is about 19.8 mag arcsec−2. There were no thick clouds in 2008. We model contributions of the Sun and the Moon to the sky background to obtain the relationship between the sky brightness and transparency. Aurorae are identified by comparing the observed sky brightness to the sky brightness expected from this model. About 2% of the images are affected by relatively strong aurorae.

[1]  T. Travouillon,et al.  The First Release of the CSTAR Point Source Catalog from Dome A, Antarctica , 2010, 1001.4941.

[2]  Xu Zhou,et al.  Testing and Data Reduction of the Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR ) for Dome A, Antarctica , 2010, 1001.4935.

[3]  J. L. Lamadrid,et al.  Site Testing of the Sierra de Javalambre: First Results , 2009, 0912.3762.

[4]  S Hengst,et al.  The PLATO Dome A site-testing observatory: power generation and control systems. , 2009, The Review of scientific instruments.

[5]  D. Burgarella,et al.  The Science Case for PILOT I: Summary and Overview , 2009, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

[6]  David M. Winker,et al.  Where Is the Best Site on Earth? Domes A, B, C, and F, and Ridges A and B , 2009, 0905.4156.

[7]  Anna M. Moore,et al.  The PLATO Dome A Site-Testing Observatory: Instrumentation and First Results , 2009 .

[8]  Lirong Xia,et al.  Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) for Antarctic Dome A , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[9]  S. F. Sanchez,et al.  The Night Sky at the Calar Alto Observatory II: The Sky at the Near-infrared , 2007, 0709.0813.

[10]  Zeljko Ivezic,et al.  Sloan Digital Sky Survey Standard Star Catalog for Stripe 82: The Dawn of Industrial 1% Optical Photometry , 2007, astro-ph/0703157.

[11]  Michael C. B. Ashley,et al.  Nigel and the optical sky brightness at Dome C, Antarctica , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[12]  J. Storey,et al.  A Review of Optical Sky Brightness and Extinction at Dome C, Antarctica , 2005, astro-ph/0511510.

[13]  E. Grebel,et al.  Empirical color transformations between SDSS photometry and Other photometric systems. , 2005, astro-ph/0609121.

[14]  Aziz Ziad,et al.  Site testing in summer at Dome C, Antarctica , 2005, astro-ph/0507475.

[15]  J. W. V. Storey,et al.  Auroral Contribution to Sky Brightness for Optical Astronomy on the Antarctic Plateau , 2005, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

[16]  John W. V. Storey,et al.  An analysis of temperatures and wind speeds above Dome C, Antarctica , 2005 .

[17]  Peter A. R. Ade,et al.  The South Pole Telescope , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[18]  Michael C. B. Ashley,et al.  Exceptional astronomical seeing conditions above Dome C in Antarctica , 2004, Nature.

[19]  Xu Zhou,et al.  Astronomical Observing Conditions at the Xinglong Station in 1995–2001 , 2003 .

[20]  F. Patat.  UBVRI night sky brightness during sunspot maximum at ESO-Paranal , 2003, astro-ph/0301115.

[21]  Daniela Calzetti,et al.  Spectrophotometric Standards from the Far-Ultraviolet to the Near-Infrared: STIS and NICMOS Fluxes , 2001 .

[22]  Richard A. Chamberlin,et al.  South Pole submillimeter sky opacity and correlations with radiosonde observations , 2001 .

[23]  C. Benn,et al.  LA Palma Night-Sky Brightness , 1999, astro-ph/9909153.

[24]  Sara L. Ellison,et al.  Brightness of the night sky over La Palma , 1998 .

[25]  Kevin Krisciunas,et al.  A MODEL OF THE BRIGHTNESS OF MOONLIGHT , 1991 .

[26]  J. B. Oke,et al.  Secondary standard stars for absolute spectrophotometry , 1983 .

[27]  M. Burton,et al.  PILOT – the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope , 2007 .

[28]  Brinkmann,et al.  SDSS Standard Star Catalog for Stripe 82: the Dawn of Industrial 1% Optical Photometry , 2007 .