Antarctica Schmidt telescopes

Antarctica Schmidt telescopes

Alternative names	The Antarctic Schmidt/Survey Telescopes
Location(s)	Antarctica
Coordinates	80°25′S77°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) different-filtered 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. The 2nd and 3rd telescopes were installed in 2015 and 2021, respectively. ^{[4] [5]}

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. ^[6]

The AST3-3 telescope is equipped with a near-infrared camera (AST3-NIR) to perform the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey. ^[7]

See also

• List of astronomical observatories
• Lists of telescopes

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. Yang, Xu; Hu, Yi; Shang, Zhaohui; Ma, Bin; Ashley, Michael C. B.; Cui, Xiangqun; Du, Fujia; Fu, Jianning; Gong, Xuefei (2023-02-14), Data Release of the AST3-2 Automatic Survey from Dome A, Antarctica, arXiv, doi:10.48550/arXiv.2302.06997, arXiv:2302.06997, retrieved 2025-11-22
5. Sun, Tianrui; Li, Xiaoyan; Hu, Lei; Meng, Kelai; Han, Zijian; Hu, Maokai; Li, Zhengyang; Wen, Haikun; Du, Fujia (2022-06-13), Antarctic Survey Telescope 3-3: Overview, System Performance and Preliminary Observations at Yaoan, Yunnan, arXiv, doi:10.48550/arXiv.2206.03170, arXiv:2206.03170, retrieved 2025-11-22
6. "Updates of AST3 Survey" (PDF). www.astronomy.scar.org. 2013-07-25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10.
7. Zheng, Jessica R.; Lawrence, Jon; Content, Robert; Churilov, Vladimir; Zhang, Kaiyuan; Yuan, Xiangyan; Lu, Haiping (August 2016). "Antarctic Surveying Telescope (AST3-3) NIR camera for the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS): thermal optimization and system performance". Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy VI. 9911: 99111H. doi:10.1117/12.2231065. ISSN   0277-786X.