Mauna Kea Sky Transparency from CFHT SkyProbe Data1

Steinbring, Eric; Cuillandre, Jean-Charles; Magnier, E. A.

doi:10.1086/597766

Cited by 15 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…14). For comparison the fraction of photometric weather during night-time is 62% at La Silla and 75% at Paranal as provided by Sarazin 2 (see also Ardeberg et al 1990), whereas it is only 45% at Mauna Kea (Ortolani 2003, and references therein) though more recent results report 56% (Steinbring et al 2009). Dome C is therefore very competitive compared to other observing sites.…”

Section: Weather Statistics For the Winter 2008mentioning

confidence: 90%

ASTEP South: an Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets around the celestial south pole

Crouzet¹,

Guillot²,

Agabi

et al. 2010

A&A

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Context. The Concordia base in Dome C, Antarctica, is an extremely promising site for photometric astronomy due to the 3-month long night during the Antarctic winter, favorable weather conditions, and low scintillation. Aims. The ASTEP project (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) is a pilot project to discover transiting planets and understand the limits of visible photometry from the Concordia site. Methods. ASTEP South is the first phase of the ASTEP project. The instrument is a fixed 10 cm refractor with a 4k × 4k CCD camera in a thermalized box, pointing continuously a 3.88 × 3.88•2 field of view centered on the celestial south pole. We describe the project and report results of a preliminary data analysis. Results. ASTEP South became fully functional in June 2008 and obtained 1592 hours of data during the 2008 Antarctic winter. The data are of good quality but the analysis has to account for changes in the PSF (point spread function) due to rapid ground seeing variations and instrumental effects. The pointing direction is stable within 10 arcsec on a daily timescale and drifts by only 34 arcsec in 50 days. A truly continuous photometry of bright stars is possible in June (the noon sky background peaks at a magnitude R ≈ 15 arcsec −2 on June 22), but becomes challenging in July (the noon sky background magnitude is R ≈ 12.5 arcsec −2 on July 20). The weather conditions are estimated from the number of stars detected in the field. For the 2008 winter, the statistics are between 56.3% and 68.4% of excellent weather, 17.9% to 30% of veiled weather (when the probable presence of thin clouds implies a lower number of detected stars) and 13.7% of bad weather. Using these results in a probabilistic analysis of transit detection, we show that the detection efficiency of transiting exoplanets in one given field is improved at Dome C compared to a temperate site such as La Silla. For example we estimate that a year-long campaign of 10 cm refractor could reach an efficiency of 69% at Dome C versus 45% at La Silla for detecting 2-day period giant planets around target stars from magnitude 10 to 15. The detection efficiency decreases for planets with longer orbital periods, but in relative sense it is even more favorable to Dome C. Conclusions. This shows the high potential of Dome C for photometry and future planet discoveries.

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Section: Weather Statistics For the Winter 2008mentioning

confidence: 90%

ASTEP South: an Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets around the celestial south pole

Crouzet¹,

Guillot²,

Agabi

et al. 2010

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These include SkyProbe (Cuillandre et al 2002;Steinbring et al 2009), photometry from the SNIFS parallel imager, the brightness stability of the SNIFS guide stars, the scatter of our standard stars about the best extinction solution, and knowledge of technical issues such as dome slit misalignment.…”

Section: Skyprobementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of its high cadence and continuity across the sky, we begin with measurements from SkyProbe 7 (Cuillandre et al 2002;Steinbring et al 2009), a wide field camera mounted at the CFHT and dedicated to real time atmospheric attenuation analysis. Some outlier cleaning of the SkyProbe data is necessary since it includes measurements taken when the telescope is slewing.…”

Section: Skyprobementioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric extinction properties above Mauna Kea from the Nearby SuperNova Factory spectro-photometric data set

Buton

Copin

Aldering

et al. 2012

A&A

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We present a new atmospheric extinction curve for Mauna Kea spanning 3200-9700 Å. It is the most comprehensive to date, being based on some 4285 standard star spectra obtained on 478 nights spread over a period of 7 years obtained by the Nearby SuperNova Factory using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph. This mean curve and its dispersion can be used as an aid in calibrating spectroscopic or imaging data from Mauna Kea, and in estimating the calibration uncertainty associated with the use of a mean extinction curve. Our method for decomposing the extinction curve into physical components, and the ability to determine the chromatic portion of the extinction even on cloudy nights, is described and verified over the wide range of conditions sampled by our large dataset. We demonstrate good agreement with atmospheric science data obtain at nearby Mauna Loa Observatory, and with previously published measurements of the extinction above Mauna Kea.

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“…One example, for Mauna Kea, is the analysis of Skyprobe data at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). 39 Other dedicated cloud detection equipment exists, see Refs. 40 and 41 for examples of a custom-built and a commercial instrument.…”

Section: Clouds Atmospheric Transparency and Sky Brightnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open questions in site characterization and turbulence parameter measurements

et al. 2010

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With the development of increasingly larger and more complex telescopes and instrumentation, site testing and characterization efforts also increase in both magnitude and complexity. This happens because the investment into larger observatories is higher and because new technologies, such as adaptive optics, require knowledge about parameters that did not matter previously, such as the vertical distribution of turbulence. We present examples of remaining questions which, to date, are not generally addressed by "standard" site characterization efforts, either because they are technically not (yet) feasible or because they are impractical. We center our observations around the experience gained during the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) site testing effort with an emphasis on turbulence measurements, but our findings are applicable in general to other current and future projects as well.

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Mauna Kea Sky Transparency from CFHT SkyProbe Data1

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

ASTEP South: an Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets around the celestial south pole

ASTEP South: an Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets around the celestial south pole

Atmospheric extinction properties above Mauna Kea from the Nearby SuperNova Factory spectro-photometric data set

Open questions in site characterization and turbulence parameter measurements

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