Ultra-High Precision, Ultra-Wide-Field Optical Photometry

Abstract

The low scintillation noise and the long continuous darkness are among the unique properties of the Dome-C site on the east Antarctic plateau. Ultra-high precision optical photometry is therefore among the techniques best suited for this particular site. We propose a telescope (ICE-T) optimized for ultra-high and ultra wide field photometry for Dome C. It consists of two 60 cm optical ultra-wide-field Wynne-Schmidt telescopes and one 18 cm narrow-field Maksutov spectrophotometric telescope on a single mount. ICE-T is currently a team effort of the German Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar Research, the Italian Universities of Padova and Perugia, the INAF Observatory Catania, and the Catalonian IEEC in Barcelona, Spain, and the AIP, with collaboration from the University of New South Wales, Australia and the University of St. Andrews, UK. In this paper, I discuss some of the many problems associated with sub-milli-mag photometry.