The First Release of the CSTAR Point Source Catalog from Dome A, Antarctica

Abstract

In 2008 January the 24 th Chinese expedition team successfully deployed the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) to Dome A, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau. CSTAR consists of four 14.5cm optical telescopes, each with a different filter (g, r, i and open) and has a 4.5 • × 4.5 • field of view (FOV). It operates robotically as part of the Plateau Observatory, PLATO, with each telescope taking an image every ∼30 seconds throughout the year whenever it is dark. During 2008, CSTAR #1 performed almost flawlessly, acquiring more than 0.3 million i-band images for a total integration time of 1728 hours during 158 days of observations. For each image taken under good sky conditions, more than 10,000 sources down to ∼ 16 th magnitude could -2be detected. We performed aperture photometry on all the sources in the field to create the catalog described herein. Since CSTAR has a fixed pointing centered on the South Celestial Pole (Dec = −90 • ), all the sources within the FOV of CSTAR were monitored continuously for several months. The photometric catalog can be used for studying any variability in these sources, and for the discovery of transient sources such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and minor planets.

Photometry of Variable Stars From Dome A, Antarctica

“…Since the telescopes are fixed, stars move in circles about the center of the CCD but only traverse a tiny fraction of a pixel during a single exposure. More details on CSTAR can be found in Zhou et al (2010aZhou et al ( , 2010b.…”

“…We have built such an observatory at Dome A, called PLATO (PLATeau Observatory; Ashley et al 2010;Luong-van et al 2010;Yang et al 2009;Lawrence et al 2009;Lawrence et al 2008;Hengst et al 2008;Lawrence et al 2006), and a quad-telescope called CSTAR (the Chinese Small Telescope ARray; Yuan et al 2008;Zhou et al 2010b). Based on a large amount of high-quality photometric data obtained during the 2008 Antarctic winter, Zou et al (2010) undertook a variety of sky brightness, transparency, and photometric monitoring observations, while Zhou et al (2010a) published a catalog of ∼10,000 stars in a field centered on the south celestial pole. This paper presents an independent analysis of the data acquired by CSTAR during the 2008 Antarctic winter season.…”

Performance of the autonomous PLATO Antarctic Observatory over two full years

“…The continued success of the PLATO observatory can be seen in the wealth of new scientific data and site-testing results that have started to emerge 3,10,13 . These types of observations require continued measurements over long time periods to provide accurate results for informed decisions on future instrumentation.…”

Astronomy From the High Antarctic Plateau

“…However, these SN type Ia standard candles are more accurate when measured in the near-IR than in the optical (Barone-Nugent et al, 2012). Improved measurements of the distance scale All parameters quoted from the literature (Zhou et al, 2010b;Yang et al, 2010;Bonner et al, 2010). …”

“…A star catalogue from CSTAR measurements was published by Zhou et al (2010b). Results for 157 newly detected photometrically variable sources were then published by Wang et al (2011).…”