The proposed design for PILOT is a general-purpose, wide-field (1°) 2.4 m, f/10 Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, with fast tip-tilt guiding, for 0.5-25 µm. The design allows both wide-field and diffraction-limited use at these wavelengths. The expected overall image quality, including median seeing, is 0.28-0.3'' FWHM from 0.8-2.4 µm. Point source sensitivities are estimated.

We are exploring instrumental concepts of Near and Mid InfraRed (NIR, MIR) wide field camera-spectrographs for a 2 m-class telescope at Antarctica. Scientific drivers are star formation and very low mass objects. Both concepts pretend to exploit the unique features of Dome C: superb seeing, low temperature, improved IR transmission and reduced sky background. Two preliminary concepts are presented here. The NIR instrument would cover the wavelength range 0.97–5.0 μm and would be optimized for the K,L and M bands. The MIR instrument would observe in the range 7–30 μm and would be specifically designed to exploit the extended portion of the Q window (20+ μm).

The outstanding atmospheric conditions of the Dome C give a unique opportunity to survey deeply large areas of the sky in the thermal infrared reaching interestingsensitivity limits for extragalactic astronomy. Our extragalactic database HyperLeda will benefit from new infrared data,especially for characterizing nuclear and starburst activity of AGNs and ULIRGs.

Near- and mid-IR photometry is fundamental in the study of thestellar evolution during the Asymptotic Giant Branch phase. Wegive here an overview of our studies on this topic that areperformed in preparation of the IRAIT/Dome C campaign. We willpresent also a few cases of variable AGB stars for which Antarcticlong time-seriesobservations in mid-IR are important. Finally, we will show one ofthe first observations made by Small-IRAIT during this winterover.

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.

I describe aspects of the non-solar astronomyuse of Dome C telescopes under daytime/summerconditions. In the thermal IR (TIR) wavelengthregion, where scattered sunlight is dwarfed bysky and facility radiation, astronomy benefitsfrom the better seeing, continuous sky coverage,a more than doubling of the observing time andthe improved site accessibility and logistics.Na-Laser Guide Stars (LGSs) can be used forwavefront sensing in daytime using very narrowband filters to suppress the sky background atvisible wavelengths. It enables the use ofAdaptive Optics for diffraction limited imagingin the TIR during daytime at Dome C.

This is a brief summary of the 2nd ARENA conference, including statistical information and a short review of the talks. The conference ended up with the creation of 6 working groups aimed at preparing the final ARENA roadmap in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics where Antarctic atmospheric conditions at Dome C could lead to compelling scientific breakthroughs. The results of their reflections and recommendations will be presented at the third and final ARENA conference to be held in May 2009.

“Invisible journey” is a one million yearjourney through ice and through time. Theproject was initiated by a group of scientistsand artists at the international ARENA“Large Astronomical Infrastructures atCONCORDIA” conference at Roscoff,October 2006, and obtained the label of theInternational Polar Year in March 2007. Theaim of the “Invisible journey” is to send amessage towards the future. This messagewill take the form of an object which will bedeposited in the Antarctic ice-pack. Theobject will be transported on its slow voyagethrough the ice-pack, as it migrates from itslaunch point towards the Antarctic ocean, fora period of ~1 million years. The “Invisibleobject” is a kind of post-card that we wish tosend to our descendants.The messages will becollected from all over the Earth. By thisaction, we wish to reinforce connectionsbetween people, in particular between thoseof the far North and the far South.