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]

Antarctica Schmidt telescopes
Part ofKunlun Station 
Location(s)Antarctica
Coordinates80°25′S 77°07′E
OrganizationBeijing Astronomical Observatory
Texas A&M University 
Telescope styleoptical 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 will be tested over the 2013-2014 winter in Mohe, China before being sent to the field.[5]

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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