Antarctica Schmidt telescopes

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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]

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 was tested over the 2013-2014 winter in Mohe, China before being sent to the field.[5]

## See also

* List of astronomical observatories
* Lists of telescopes

## References

1. ↑ "Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes". physics.tamu.edu. http://dome-a.physics.tamu.edu/~lifanwang/AST3/Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes.html.
2. ↑ "China to build stronger telescope network in South Pole". China.org.cn. July 24, 2009. http://www.china.org.cn/china/news/2009-07/24/content_18194380.htm.
3. ↑ "Optical system of the Three Antarctic Survey Telescopes". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. December 22, 2011. http://mcba11.phys.unsw.edu.au/~plato/papers/yua12a.pdf.
4. ↑ "China installs large Antarctic survey telescope". People's Daily Online. April 9, 2012. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/202936/7781043.html.
5. ↑ "Updates of AST3 Survey". www.astronomy.scar.org. 2013-07-25. http://www.astronomy.scar.org/AAA2013/pdf/Shang.pdf.

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