The International Robotic Antarctic Infrared Telescope (IRAIT)

Abstract

Thanks to exceptional coldness, low sky brightness and low content of water vapour of the above atmosphere Dome C, one of the three highest peaks of the large Antarctic plateau, is likely to be the best site on Earth for thermal infrared observations (2.3-300 μm) as well as for the far infrared range (30 μm-1mm). IRAIT (International Robotic Antarctic Infrared Telescope) will be the first European Infrared telescope operating at Dome C. It will be delivered to Antarctica at the end of 2006, will reach Dome C at the end of 2007 and the first winter-over operation will start in spring 2008, IRAIT will offer a unique opportunity for astronomers to test and verify the astronomical quality of the site and it will be a useful test-instrument for a new generation of Antarctic telescopes and focal plane instrumentations. We give here a general overview of the project and of the logistics and transportation options adopted to facilitate the installation of IRAIT at Dome C. We summarize the results of the electrical, electronics and networking tests and of the sky polarization measurements carried out at Dome C during the 2005-2006 summer-campaign. We also present the 25 cm optical telescope (small-IRAIT project) that will installed at Dome C during the Antarctic summer 2006-2007 and that will start observations during the 2007 Antarctic winter when a member of the IRAIT collaboration will join the Italian-French Dome C winter-over team

The Opto-mechanical design of the Antarctic Telescope ICE-T

“…To avoid any backlash problem we intend to use double pinions rotating in opposite direction controlled via an inverter 10 . We have chosen a Dual Drive typology with a mechanically preloaded torsion connection and spur gears for rotary drive applications, usually employed in machine tools.…”

Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes (AST3) for Dome A

“…Some crossties and wooden floor will be fixed on the ice surface. This wooden platform can distribute weight of whole structure to ice surface equably 11 .…”

New filters for NIR-MIR astronomy from Dome C: the case of AMICA

“…The telescope has also a Nasmyth configuration thanks to a 45° tilted mirror (for details see [4]). The featuring of IRAIT's three mirrors is done assuming a protected gold coating.…”

“…To verify and exploit these unique site characteristics, and taking advantage of the newly constructed Franco-Italian Concordia Station facilities, the Antarctic Multiband Infrared CAmera (AMICA) project has been developed [3]. AMICA will be mounted at one of the Nasmyth foci of the IRAIT telescope [4]; it is conceived to cover the wavelength range between 2 and 25 µm by splitting the optical path in two different colour channels. The first channel is equipped with a Raytheon InSb 256x256 array covering the spectral range between 2 and 5 µm (SWA -Short Wavelength Array), the second channel mounts a Si:As 128x128 array covering the 5-28 µm range (LWA -Long Wavelength Array).…”