Author/Authors :
M. C. B. Ashley، نويسنده , , G. Allen، نويسنده , , C. S. Bonner، نويسنده , , S. G. Bradley، نويسنده , , X. Cui، نويسنده , , J. R. Everett، نويسنده , , L. Feng، نويسنده , , S. X. Gong، نويسنده , , S. Hengst، نويسنده , , J. Hu، نويسنده , , Z. Jiang، نويسنده , , C. A. Kulesa، نويسنده , , J. S. Lawrence، نويسنده , , Y. Li، نويسنده , , D. M. Luong-Van، نويسنده , , M. J. McCaughrean، نويسنده , , A. M. Moore، نويسنده , , C. Pennypacker، نويسنده , , W. Qin، نويسنده , , David R. Riddle، نويسنده , , Y. Z. Shang، نويسنده ,
Abstract :
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×10k CCDs and 100TB/annum data requirements.
Keywords :
instrumentation: miscellaneous , atmospheric effects , telescopes , site testing
