No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2013
Site testing carried out on Ellesmere Island over recent years has shown that mountainous coastal terrain there can provide high clear-sky fractions in the long dark season, with low precipitable water-vapour column and prospects for excellent seeing. This presents new possibilities for time-domain and survey-mode science in the northern hemisphere, allowing uninterrupted high-precision photometry in the optical/near-infrared, but also gains in the submillimetre/millimetre. Efforts underway at the Eureka research station, at 80 degrees latitude, are reviewed. This location provides year-round access to a nearby site being developed as a pathfinder observatory. A program of variable-star and transient searches involving a wide-field imaging system has begun, with some early results. Plans include extrasolar-planet hunting via transit surveys, and future directions are discussed.