Comments on: The Best Place on Earth

By: Santoki

Santoki — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:14:29 +0000

Pretty funny that the photo in the article shows an overcast, snowy scene. You can’t even see the sky D:

By: Ridge A: o melhor lugar no mundo para observar o céu | Goitacá

Ridge A: o melhor lugar no mundo para observar o céu | Goitacá — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:27:40 +0000

[...] Dica do Bad Astronomy [...]

By: Interesting Stuff: Early September 2009 « The Outer Hoard

Interesting Stuff: Early September 2009 « The Outer Hoard — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:28:59 +0000

[...] contains ideal site for astronomical observatory. Phil Plait has link to Google Map [...]

By: coolstar

coolstar — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:27:42 +0000

Quite a bit of astronomy has been going on at the Cordordia site at Dome C for quite a while.
Ask Dr. google or google scholar (or astro-ph) and you can turn up lots of things pretty quickly (including the first published astronomy paper using data from Dome C ).
The site has been “wintered-over” for a few winters now. The Chinese site at Dome A may turn out to be better, but as someone mentioned, there have been only annual long treks to set up and monitor site-testing equipment there, so far, as it’s even more inaccessible than Dome C.
Oh, winter temperatures reach around -80 C at Dome C.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it, but “picrete” might actually be a very good and economical building material at both sites (you heard it here first, maybe…..).
For lots of very good science, these sites are almost as good as being in space, but maybe 100x (or more) cheaper.

By: Shane

Shane — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:33:30 +0000

T.E.L. is correct. Antarctica is the driest and, on average, highest continent. Perfect viewing conditions. It is also windy and bloody cold so wear an extra pair of socks.

By: T.E.L.

T.E.L. — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:46:53 +0000

Bill Nettles Said:

” Snow—lots of it.”

Not in the region where this is all proposed. The big selling points include that precipitation and cloud cover are almost non-existent.

By: Bill Nettles

Bill Nettles — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:04:31 +0000

At 80 deg S, you will have 24 hours of daylight between Oct. 15 and Feb. 24 and bright twilight/dawn for a week or so at each end. No nighttime visual observations, and that’s when all the flights can occur.

Daylight and nighttime occur Feb. 24 to April 15 (+/- 1 or 2 days) and August 25 to Oct 15, and 24 hours of nighttime from April 15 to August 25. But it’s winter, the staff is stuck (emergency flights only) and not many of them. It’s like frozen-mercury cold. There are mechanical motorized mount issues to deal with. If you have a heated building there are thermal expansion/contraction issues when you open the dome. Snow—lots of it. There are some problems that aren’t worth the money for the solution.