cool seeing

Apparently there are some wonderful places for telescopes in Antarctica 

Logistics issues to be sure, but when has that stopped science?

the abstract:

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 121:976–992, 2009 September

© 2009. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

DOI: 10.1086/605780

Where Is the Best Site on Earth? Domes A, B, C, and F, and Ridges A and B

Will Saunders,1,2 

Jon S. Lawrence,1,2,3 

John W. V. Storey,1 and 

Michael C. B. Ashley1

 

Seiji Kato, 

Patrick Minnis, and 

David M. Winker

NASA Langley Research Center

Guiping Liu

Space Sciences Lab, University of California Berkeley

and 

Craig Kulesa

Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory, University of Arizona

ABSTRACT.

The Antarctic plateau contains the best sites on earth for many forms of astronomy, but none of the existing bases was selected with astronomy as the primary motivation. In this article, we try to systematically compare the merits of potential observatory sites. We include South Pole, Domes A, C, and F, and also Ridge B (running northeast from Dome A), and what we call “Ridge A” (running southwest from Dome A). Our analysis combines satellite data, published results, and atmospheric models, to compare the boundary layer, weather, aurorae, airglow, precipitable water vapor, thermal sky emission, surface temperature, and the free atmosphere, at each site. We find that all Antarctic sites are likely to be compromised for optical work by airglow and aurorae. Of the sites with existing bases, Dome A is easily the best overall; but we find that Ridge A offers an even better site. We also find that Dome F is a remarkably good site. Dome C is less good as a thermal infrared or terahertz site, but would be able to take advantage of a predicted “OH hole” over Antarctica during spring.

Received 2009 May 26; accepted 2009 July 13; published 2009 August 20

• 1School of Physics, University of New South Wales.

• 2Anglo-Australian Observatory; will@aao.gov.au.

• 3Macquarie University, New South Wales.