Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Exceptional astronomical seeing conditions above Dome C in Antarctica

Nature volume 431, pages 278–281 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

One of the most important considerations when planning the next generation of ground-based optical astronomical telescopes is to choose a site that has excellent ‘seeing’—the jitter in the apparent position of a star that is caused by light bending as it passes through regions of differing refractive index in the Earth's atmosphere. The best mid-latitude sites have a median seeing ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 arcsec (refs 1–5). Sites on the Antarctic plateau have unique atmospheric properties that make them worth investigating as potential observatory locations. Previous testing at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station has, however, demonstrated poor seeing, averaging 1.8 arcsec (refs 6, 7). Here we report observations of the wintertime seeing from Dome C (ref. 8), a high point on the Antarctic plateau at a latitude of 75° S. The results are remarkable: the median seeing is 0.27 arcsec, and below 0.15 arcsec 25 per cent of the time. A telescope placed at Dome C would compete with one that is 2 to 3 times larger at the best mid-latitude observatories, and an interferometer based at this site could work on projects that would otherwise require a space mission.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Comparison of turbulence profiles obtained from similar instruments at Dome C and Cerro Tololo.
Figure 2: Dome C atmospheric coherence time, isoplanatic angle and seeing data as a function of time.
Figure 3: Histograms and cumulative distributions of the atmospheric seeing and the isoplanatic angle.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Racine, R. & Ellerbroek, B. L. Profiles of the night-time turbulence above Mauna Kea and isoplanatism extension in adaptive optics. Proc. SPIE 2534, 248–257 (1995)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Sarazin, M. Astroclimatology of Paranal (European Southern Observatory, 1999); 〈http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/pubs/astclim/paranal/index.html〉 (1999).

  3. Michel, R., Echevarria, J., Costero, R. & Harris, O. The seeing at San Pedro Mártir Observatory as measured using the DIMM method. Rev. Mex. Astron. Astrofís. 19, 37–40 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  4. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Subaru telescope seeing 〈http://www.naoj.org/Observing/Telescope/Image/seeing.html〉 (2003).

  5. Muñoz-Tuñón, C., Vernin, J. & Varela, A. M. Night-time image quality at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 125, 183–193 (1997)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Travouillon, T. et al. Automated Shack-Hartmann seeing measurements at the South Pole. Astron. Astrophys. 409, 1169–1173 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Marks, R. D., Vernin, J., Azouit, M., Manigault, J. F. & Clevelin, C. Measurement of optical seeing on the high Antarctic plateau. Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 134, 161–172 (1999)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Candidi, M. & Lori, A. Status of the Antarctic base at Dome C and perspectives for Astrophysics. Mem. Soc. Astron. Ital. 74, 29–37 (2003)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Ashley, M. C. B. et al. South Pole observations of the near-infrared sky brightness. Pub. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 108, 721–723 (1996)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Chamberlain, M. A. et al. Mid-infrared observing conditions at the South Pole. Astrophys. J. 535, 501–511 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Chamberlin, R. A. & Bally, J. 225-GHz atmospheric opacity of the South Pole sky derived from continual radiometric measurements of the sky-brightness temperature. Appl. Opt. 33, 1095–1099 (1994)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Travouillon, T., Ashey, M. C. B., Burton, M. G., Storey, J. W. V. & Lowenstein, R. F. Atmospheric turbulence at the South Pole and its implications for astronomy. Astron. Astrophys. 400, 1163–1172 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Gillingham, P. R. Super seeing from the Australian Antarctic Territory? ANARE Res. Notes 88, 290–292 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Marks, R. D. Astronomical seeing from the summits of the Antarctic plateau. Astron. Astrophys. 385, 328–336 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Aristidi, E. et al. Antarctic site testing: first daily seeing monitoring at Dome C. Astron. Astrophys. 406, L19–L22 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Aristidi, E. et al. Preliminary summer site testing study based on weather balloons at Dome C, Antarctica. Astron. Astrophys. (submitted)

  17. Lawrence, J. S., Ashley, M. C. B. & Storey, J. W. V. A remote, autonomous laboratory for Antarctica with hybrid power generation. J. Electron. Electric. Eng. Aust. (in the press)

  18. Kornilov, V. et al. MASS: a monitor of the vertical turbulence distribution. Proc. SPIE 4839, 837–845 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Tokovinin, A., Baumont, S. & Vasquez, J. Statistics of turbulence profile at Cerro Tololo. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 340, 52–58 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Tokovinin, A., Kornilov, V., Shatsky, N. & Voziakova, O. Restoration of turbulence profile from scintillation indices. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 343, 891–899 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. Tokovinin, A. Measurement of seeing and atmospheric time constant by differential scintillations. Appl. Opt. 41, 957–964 (2002)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Travouillon, T., Burton, M. G., Storey, J. W. V., Vernin, J. & Azouit, M. Comparison and cross-calibration of SODAR and microthermal sensor results. Geophys. Res. Lett. (submitted)

  23. Chanin, M. An exceptional situation in the Antarctic stratosphere in 2002. Mem. Soc. Astron. Ital. Suppl. 2, 19–25 (2003)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  24. Ellerbroek, B. L. & Tyler, D. W. Adaptive optics sky coverage calculations for the Gemini-North telescope. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 110, 165–185 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Beckers, J. M. Adaptive optics for astronomy: principles, performance, and applications. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 31, 13–62 (1993)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  26. Ashley, M. C. B., Burton, M. G., Calisse, P. G., Phillips, A. & Storey, J. W. V. Site testing at Dome C—cloud statistics from the ICECAM experiment. Highlights of Astronomy (ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 13, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, in the press)

  27. Lawrence, J. S. Infrared and submillimeter atmospheric characteristics of high Antarctic Plateau sites. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 116, 482–492 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. National Optical Astronomy Observatory. MASS data access 〈http://139.229.11.21/massindex.php?Submit2=MASS+Database〉 (2004).

  29. Avila, R. et al. Optical turbulence and wind profiles at San Pedro Martir. Rev. Mex. Astron. Astrofís. 19, 11–22 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Vernin, J. & Muñoz-Tuñón, C. Optical seeing at La Palma Observatory. II. Intensive site testing campaign at the Nordic Optical Telescope. Astron. Astrophys. 284, 311–318 (1994)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The AASTINO project is supported by the Australian Research Council, the Australian Antarctic Division, the French and Italian Antarctic research programs (IPEV, PNRA) and the US National Science Foundation. The Dome C MASS is a collaboration between UNSW, CTIO and JPL. We thank J. Storey, A. Moore and C. Bonner for contributions during Dome C deployments; J. Storey, M. Swain, J. Lloyd, and J. Everett for intellectual input into the Dome C MASS project; S. Kenyon for assistance with data analysis; and V. Kornilov and N. Shatsky for software support of MASS. We also thank P. Gillingham for his encouragement over the past decade to demonstrate the existence of exceptional seeing from the Antarctic plateau.Authors' contributions J.S.L. and M.C.B.A. designed and operated the Antarctic MASS instrumentation and co-wrote this Letter. A.T. provided the MASS sensor in collaboration with V. Kornilov et al. and assisted with the data analysis. T.T. assisted with the SODAR data and installation of MASS at Dome C.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, University of New South Wales, New South Wales, 2052, Australia

    Jon S. Lawrence, Michael C. B. Ashley & Tony Travouillon

  2. Cerro-Tololo Inter American Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile

    Andrei Tokovinin

Authors
  1. Jon S. Lawrence
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael C. B. Ashley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Andrei Tokovinin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Tony Travouillon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael C. B. Ashley.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lawrence, J., Ashley, M., Tokovinin, A. et al. Exceptional astronomical seeing conditions above Dome C in Antarctica. Nature 431, 278–281 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02929

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02929

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing