In 2008 January the 24th Chinese expedition team successfully deployed the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) to Dome A, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau. CSTAR consists of four 14.5cm optical telescopes, each with a different filter (g, r, i and open) and has a 4.5°×4.5° field of view (FOV). Based on the CSTAR data, initial statistics of astronomical observational site quality and light curves of variable objects were obtained. To reach higher photometric quality, we are continuing to work to overcome the effects of uneven cirrus cloud cirrus, optical “ghosts” and intra-pixel sensitivity. The snow surface stability is also tested for further astronomical observational instrument and for glaciology studies.

PLATO is a fully-robotic observatory designed for operation in Antarctica. It generates its own electricity (about 1 kW), heat (sufficient to keep two 10-foot shipping containers comfortably above 0°C when the outside temperature is at -70°C), and connects to the internet using the Iridium satellite system (providing ~30 MB/day of data transfer). Following a successful first year of operation at Dome A during 2008, PLATO was upgraded with new instruments for 2009.

The optical turbulence above Dome C in winter is mainly concentrated in the first tens of meters above the ground. The properties of this so-called surface layer were investigated during the last two winterover by a set of sonics anemometers placed on a 45 m high tower. These anemometers provide measurements of the temperature and the wind speed vector. The sampling rate of 10 Hz allows to derivate the refractive index structure constant Cn2. We report here the first analysis of these data.

In January 2005, members of a Chinese expedition team were the first humans to visit Dome A on the Antarctic plateau, a site predicted to be one of the very best astronomical sites on earth.
In 2006, the Chinese Center for Antarctic Astronomy (CCAA) was founded to promote the development of astronomy in Antarctica, especially at Dome A. CCAA has since taken part in two traverses to Dome A, organized by the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC), in the austral summers of 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. These traverses resulted in the installation of many site-testing and science instruments, supported by the PLATO observatory. The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) has produced excellent results from Dome A.
Our future plans include further site-testing work, and the following full-scale science instruments: three 0.5-m Antarctic Schmidt Telescopes (AST3), and a proposed 4-m telescope for wide-field infrared high spatial-resolution surveys. The first AST3 telescope is under construction and is scheduled for installation in 2011.

PLATO is a 6 tonne completely self-contained robotic observatory that provides its own heat, electricity, and satellite communications. It was deployed to Dome A in Antarctica in January 2008 by the Chinese expedition team, and is now in its second year of operation. PLATO is operating four 14.5cm optical telescopes with 1k × 1k CCDs, a wide-field sky camera with a 2k × 2k CCD and Sloan g, r, i filters, a fibre-fed spectrograph to measure the UV to near-IR sky spectrum, a 0.2m terahertz telescope, two sonic radars giving 1m resolution data on the boundary layer to a height of 180m, a 15m tower, meteorological sensors, and 8 web cameras. Beginning in 2010/11 PLATO will be upgraded to support a Multi Aperture Scintillation Sensor and three AST3 0.5m schmidt telescopes, with 10k × 10 CCDs and 100TB/annum data requirements.

Dome A, the summit of the Antarctic plateau, is expected to have even better atmospheric conditions for ground-based astronomy than Dome C.Instruments to evaluate and exploit Dome A's astronomical potentialmust operate within logistical constraints, which are currentlyvery stringent. Instrumentation now at Dome A exemplifies the techniques and solutions required by this environment. Future instrumentation and infrastructure will allow the qualities of the siteto be exploited much more fully.

The Gattini-DomeC project, part of the IRAIT site testing campaign and ongoing since January 2006, consists of two cameras for the measurement of optical sky brightness, large area cloud cover, and auroral detection above the DomeC site, home of the French-Italian Concordia station. The cameras are transit in nature and are virtually identical except for the nature of the lenses. The cameras have operated throughout the past two Antarctic winter seasons and here we present the results obtained from the 2006 winter-time dataset of the wide field “All-sky camera".

At Dome C most of the seeing is located in the lower atmosphere, below 50 meters height.In this introduction we describe ways in which one might mitigate those ground layer seeingeffects and thus be limited solely by the ~0.25 arcsec seeing of the so-called“free atmosphere”.

The Gattini cameras are two site testing instruments for the measurement of optical sky brightness, large area cloud cover and auroral detection of the night sky above the high altitude Dome C site in Antarctica. The cameras have been operating since installation in January 2006 and are currently at the end of the first Antarctic winter season. The cameras are transit in nature and are virtually identical, both adopting Apogee Alta CCD detectors. By taking frequent images of the night sky we obtain long term cloud cover statistics, measure the sky background intensity as a function of solar and lunar altitude and phase and directly measure the spatial extent of bright aurora if present and when they occur. The full data set will return in December 2006 however a limited amount of data has been transferred via the Iridium network enabling preliminary data reduction and system evaluation. An update of the project is presented together with preliminary results from data taken since commencement of the winter season.

Submillimetre/TeraHertz (e.g. 200, 350, 450 μm) astronomy is the prime technique to unveil the birth and early evolution of a broad range of astrophysical objects. A major obstacle to carry out submm observations from ground is the atmosphere. Preliminary site testing and atmospheric transmission models tend to demonstrate that Dome C could offer the best conditions on Earth for submm/THz astronomy. The CAMISTIC project aims to install a filled bolometer-array camera with 16×16 pixels on IRAIT at Dome C and explore the 200-μm windows for potential ground-based observations.

We present results of daytime site testing at Dome C in summer2003–2004. Daytime seeing has been monitored during 2$\frac{1}{2}$months using a DIMM on the bright star Canopus, giving median value of0.54 arcsec. An every-day best seeing period has been observed around5 pm with seeing around 0.3 arcsec. First isoplanatic anglemeasurements, based on stellar scintillation, were also performedduring the month of January 2004, and have given median value of 6.8 arcsec.


The atmospheric boundary layer contribution to the total seeing atDome C is presented in this paper. With a mean value of0.07'', this is one of the most stable boundary layerencountered. We discuss the temporal evolution of this part of theatmosphere and its relationship with meteorological parameters. Inwinter, the combined effects of the low wind speeds and low inversionlayer translate to the creation of little thermal turbulence above30 m.

We present wind and temperature profiles at Dome C measured during thepolar summer by balloon born sonds. Data from 197 flights have beenprocessed for 4 campaigns between 2000 and 2004. We show theexceptionnal wind conditions at Dome C: averaged ground wind speed is 3.6 m s-1. We noticed in mid-november the presence of high altitude strong winds (40 m s-1) probably due to the polar vortex which disappear in summer. These winds seem to have no effect on seeing measurements made with a DIMM at the same period. Temperature profiles exhibit a minimum at height 5500 m (over the snow surface) that defines the tropopause. Surface layer temperature profile has negative gradient in the first 50 m above ground in the afternoon and a strong inversion layer (5°C over 50 m) around midnight. Wind profiles are compared with other astronomical sites, and with a meteorological model from Meteo France.