Astronomers Find the Calmest Place On Earth 231
The Narrative Fallacy writes "Live Science reports that astronomers in search of the perfect site to take pictures of the heavens have combined data from satellites, ground stations and climate models in a study to assess the many factors that affect image quality — cloud cover, temperature, sky-brightness, water vapor, wind speeds and atmospheric turbulence. They have pinpointed the coldest, driest, calmest place on earth, known simply as Ridge A, 13,297 feet high on the Antarctic Plateau. 'It's so calm that there's almost no wind or weather there at all,' says study leader Will Saunders, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. 'The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers.' Located within the Australian Antarctic Territory, the site is 89 miles from the PLATO (PLATeau Observatory) international robotic observatory. The new site would be superior to the best existing observatories on high mountain tops in Hawaii and Chile, Saunders says. 'Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth.'"
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:4, Informative)
Australian Antarctic Territory ? (Score:5, Informative)
Located within the Australian Antarctic Territory
Note that the USA, Russia, China, and many other countries do not recognize this territory as being in any way Australian.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:4, Informative)
> The moon gets as much sunlight over it's entire surface.
Not at the poles. In fact there is at least one crater near the South pole that is in permanent shadow.
Re:What about the Katabatic winds? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about the Katabatic winds? (Score:4, Informative)
I would guess that it's at one of the high locations where the Katabatic winds start from. They're like avalanches, they aren't bad at the top, just at the bottom.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, it's on a mountain ridge. The smog/fog will go....down.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:3, Informative)
>>>best spot for observational astronomy has to be the far side of the Moon... What's not to love?
Funny you mention "love" because there's no women on the moon, or on that ridge in Antarctica, which is a major drawback of accepting either of those jobs. Oh wait. It's just like my current job.
Re:Coordinates, please (Score:3, Informative)
It's 89 km from Plato [slashdot.org] - a Chinese-Australian robotic observatory at "Dome A".
That's at 80 deg 22' S 77 deg 21' E [unsw.edu.au] and 4093 meters above sea level.
I have to wonder if it's that much better than PLATO that there is a need for 2 observatories 89 km apart.
Re:Antarctica... (Score:5, Informative)
The Antarctic gate was in storage after being retreived from McMurdo.
The original Giza gate was in use at SGC until it was beamed up into Thor's ship before it crashed into the pacific.
Then the A-Gate became the primary because the G-Gate was thought lost in the Pacific, but it was infact retrieved by the Russians and they ran their own gate program.
It was the A-Gate that was destroyed by Anubis. The G-gate was then purchased back from the Russians after they figured out that Anubis's gate-blower-upper-thingy was destroyed.
Yes, I'm a Gate Geek.
Re:Antarctica... (Score:3, Informative)
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_(device)#Secondary_gates/ [wikipedia.org]
Re:Note to USA, Russia and China. (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair, the reasons for not recognizing the territory are ostensibly noble; they theoretically believe that the continent should be treated as a shared resource with limited exploitation (primarily for scientific purposes). Granted, both Russia and the US "reserve the right" to make territorial claims in the future, but to do so they'd have to withdraw from the Antarctic Treaty (which explicitly forbids new territorial claims, and explicitly fails to either recognize or dispute pre-existing claims). I can't find any evidence that China has made similar statements (they are also a signatory on the treaty, and therefore can't make claims), but I'm sure if the treaty were broken they would try and get in on the action.
Re:For Earthbound, mebbe... (Score:5, Informative)
Since it's so calm, it'll just accumulate, then condense on the cold optics. Have fun seeing when your mirror's frosted over with an inch of rime.
Presumably you put the generator a sufficient distance away to minimize any disturbance to the optics, or to seeing quality. The area gets almost no precipitation and probably no animal life, so anything you lay on the ground will remain undisturbed. In this sense it seems like an ideal place to run an automated telescope, if you can get past the somewhat difficult access issue.
Regarding the "condensing on the optics" problem, astronomers have hundreds of years of experience dealing with this issue. The simplest approach is to slightly warm the optics using resistive heaters. As long as the optics are slightly warmer than the surroundings, any water in the air will condense somewhere else. You don't want too much heating, since then you form convective air currents above the mirror that harm the seeing conditions. However with some reasonably accurate temperature sensors and a feedback controller, the condensation problem is straightforward to solve.
Re:Wow, that sounds like paradise. Wait.. (Score:2, Informative)
Newsflash, plenty of telescopes already reside in Antarctica, some within walking distance of the South Pole (They had one installed). A small colony of scientists spend winters there (not permanently). The idea of sticking a research station with nuclear batteries in there is not out of the question. Certainly not if they make it automated.