Pith. sign in

REVIEW 1 cited by

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2007.15365 v1 pith:FP2OARSD submitted 2020-07-30 astro-ph.IM

Night-time measurements of astronomical seeing at Dome A in Antarctica

classification astro-ph.IM
keywords seeingboundarydomelayerarcsecmedianabovefree-atmosphere
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

Seeing, the angular size of stellar images blurred by atmospheric turbulence, is a critical parameter used to assess the quality of astronomical sites. Median values at the best mid-latitude sites are generally in the range of 0.6--0.8\,arcsec. Sites on the Antarctic plateau are characterized by comparatively-weak turbulence in the free-atmosphere above a strong but thin boundary layer. The median seeing at Dome C is estimated to be 0.23--0.36 arcsec above a boundary layer that has a typical height of 30\,m. At Dome A and F, the only previous seeing measurements were made during daytime. Here we report the first direct measurements of night-time seeing at Dome A, using a Differential Image Motion Monitor. Located at a height of just 8\,m, it recorded seeing as low as 0.13\,arcsec, and provided seeing statistics that are comparable to those for a 20\,m height at Dome C. It indicates that the boundary layer was below 8\,m 31\% of the time. At such times the median seeing was 0.31\,arcsec, consistent with free-atmosphere seeing. The seeing and boundary layer thickness are found to be strongly correlated with the near-surface temperature gradient. The correlation confirms a median thickness of approximately 14\,m for the boundary layer at Dome A, as found from a sonic radar. The thinner boundary layer makes it less challenging to locate a telescope above it, thereby giving greater access to the free-atmosphere.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 1 Pith paper

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Prospect for Detection of Strongly Lensed Multi-messenger Signals of Binary Neutron Star Mergers

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0

    Future CE+ET detectors may detect lensed BNS kilonovae at ~0.5/yr via pointed follow-up of known galaxy lenses, while lensed sGRBs and afterglows remain rare or undetectable with current-generation facilities.