Posted on 07/30/2020 7:46:18 AM PDT by zeestephen
Dome A, the highest ice dome on the Antarctic Plateau, could offer the clearest view on Earth of the stars at night, according to new research..."The combination of high altitude, low temperature, long periods of continuous darkness, and an exceptionally stable atmosphere, makes Dome A a very attractive location for optical and infrared astronomy."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Besides light and clouds, the “turbulence” of the local atmosphere is critical for viewing.
There is very limited wind, humidity, and temperature gradients at that specific location.
“Where were you, Childs?”
“The main drawback to a location in Antarctica is that you can only look at objects in the southern hemisphere of the sky.”
Also, only during the winter, no?
The advantage is, on a world with 70% of the surface is ocean, most of the landmasses, population, and astronomy gets done in the northern hemisphere, where it is impossible to view a large chunk of the sky.
Eltanin keyword:
But you can’t see the north star from there. :-(
Re: “OK, team, let’s focus on Polaris!”
So, I will guess the joke is that the North Star is NEVER visible from Antarctica?
Also, it brings up an interesting question - is there a South Star in the southern Hemisphere?
Maybe space is the wrong place to look for what we need as a species. Just sayin’.
And they could toss their garbage out in the snow...
The lunar day is 27.53 earth days long, not coincidentally the same period as a lunar month.
Give me a couple of billion dollars and I’ll build it.
So that ozone hole is good for something after all?
No, in the sense of a bright star near the celestial south pole. There is actually no "North Star", strictly speaking. Currently Polaris is about 0.7358° away from the Celestial North Pole.
From wikipedia Article on the pole star
The celestial pole will be nearest Polaris in 2100 and will thereafter become more distant. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star, aligning within 0.1° distance from the celestial pole, the closest of any of the visible pole stars.[9][10] However, at magnitude 3.67 (fourth magnitude) it is only one-fifth as bright as Polaris, and today it is invisible in light-polluted urban skies. During the 1st millennium BC, Beta Ursae Minoris ("Kochab") was the bright star closest to the celestial pole, but it was never close enough to be taken as marking the pole, and the Greek navigator Pytheas in ca. 320 BC described the celestial pole as devoid of stars.[7][11] In the Roman era, the celestial pole was about equally distant between Polaris and Kochab.
I used to star gaze in Soldotna, Alaska during the winter months. I was out one night when the temp was -25*F. It was hard to keep the optics from icing up. After about an hour the contrast in the southern sky where I was observing got really poor. I turned around to grab something and the entire north sky was lit up green with Aurora. So much for that session. Funny, I never tried observing when it was that cold again...
Looking through a ground based telescope is a waste of resources. But I’m no scientist nor do I play one on TV so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I like the 1951 version better.
There is a South Star, but it’s so dim (4th or 5th magnitude) that it’s not worth looking for. The name of it is Sigma Octantis.
For those talking about orbital telescopes, look at how long it is taking for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), in development since 1996 with an initial launch goal of 2007. As of this month (July 2020) the new launch date is set for 31 October 2021 and the development costs have gone from $0.5 Billion to $ 9.7 Billion. The JWST will not be serviceable because it will be at the Lagrange point #2, a gravity-balanced point located 1.5 million kilometers / 930k miles anti-sol from Earth.
Even an Antarctic-based site will be much easier to maintain and upgrade over the years once the initial construction has been done. The JWST is given a median 10 year life span for operation by contrast.
There is not a singular, bright star directly over the South Pole.
I want the 2nd best place. Somewhere in Hawaii.
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