Design and implementation of a prototype of Antarctic optical telescope array for time domain astronomy based on drift-scan CCD technology
Abstract
<p indent="0mm">Rapid sky survey using a large field-of-view telescope is an important method for time-domain astronomy. With many continuous nights in polar night season, the Antarctic region is an ideal place for short-term time-domain astronomy observation. Optical telescopes in Antarctica must cope with severe challenges such as extremely low temperatures, unmanned operations, limited power supply, and slow network transmission. A prototype Antarctic optical telescope array for time-domain astronomy based on drift-scan CCD technology has been designed and developed. The basic ideas of the prototype include four items: (1) Installing a CCD camera with drift-scan function on a large-field-of-view optical telescope, which can capture faint objects without a driving system, and the system has high reliability; (2) placing the optical telescope system and control/processing computer in a controllable temperature dome with sealed window glass and heating equipment, which makes the system do not require low-temperature-resistant components and have low costs; (3) image preprocessing is performed locally, and the processing results are transmitted to China through the network, which means slow internet is available; (4) The heat dissipation of CCD cameras and computers working as auxiliary heating devices is used, which make the energy utilization rate close to 100%, and the system power consumption is relatively low. In October 2022, the prototype followed the 39th Chinese Antarctic scientific research ship to Zhongshan Station in Antarctica and has been operating stably and reliably for six months under low-temperature conditions in Antarctica. The preliminary analysis of the returned CCD images shows that despite harsh weather conditions at Zhongshan Station in Antarctica (with a temperature of −37.3°C and a wind speed of <sc>38.6 m/s),</sc> the prototype operates stably and has excellent image quality, reflecting the enormous advantages of drift-scan CCD technology for astronomical observation in Antarctica. The experimental observation results of the prototype laid a solid foundation for the subsequent construction of the Antarctic optical telescope array for short-term time-domain astronomy.</p>
