The First Release of the AST3-1 Point Source Catalogue from Dome A, Antarctica

• Published in: arXiv.org
• Main Authors: Ma, Bin, Shang, Zhaohui, Hu, Yi, Hu, Keliang, Liu, Qiang, Ashley, Michael C B, Cui, Xiangqun, Du, Fujia, Fan, Dongwei, Feng, Longlong, Huang, Fang, Gu, Bozhong, He, Boliang, Ji, Tuo, Li, Xiaoyan, Li, Zhengyang, Liu, Huigen, Tian, Qiguo, Tao, Charling, Wang, Daxing, Wang, Lifan, Wang, Songhu, Wang, Xiaofeng, Peng, Wei, Wu, Jianghua, Xu, Lingzhe, Yang, Shihai, Yang, Ming, Yang, Yi, Yu, Ce, Yuan, Xiangyan, Zhou, Hongyan, Zhang, Hui, Zhang, Xueguang, Zhang, Yi, Zhao, Cheng, Zhou, Jilin, Zong-Hong, Zhu
• Format: Paper Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 15.05.2018
• Subjects: Apertures; Astronomy; CCD cameras; Commissioning; Data reduction; Domes; Extrasolar planets; Field of view; Light curve; Magellanic clouds; Photometry; Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Point sources; Schmidt telescopes; Telescopes; Time domain analysis; Wolf-Rayet stars; Antarctica
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1805.05566

The three Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3) aim to carry out time domain imaging survey at Dome A, Antarctica. The first of the three telescopes (AST3-1) was successfully deployed on January 2012. AST3-1 is a 500\,mm aperture modified Schmidt telescope with a 680\,mm diameter primary mirror. AST3-1 is equipped with a SDSS \(i\) filter and a 10k \(\times\) 10k frame transfer CCD camera, reduced to 5k \(\times\) 10k by electronic shuttering, resulting in a 4.3 deg\(^2\) field-of-view. To verify the capability of AST3-1 for a variety of science goals, extensive commissioning was carried out between March and May 2012. The commissioning included a survey covering 2000 deg\(^2\) as well as the entire Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Frequent repeated images were made of the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a selected exoplanet transit field, and fields including some Wolf-Rayet stars. Here we present the data reduction and photometric measurements of the point sources observed by AST3-1. We have achieved a survey depth of 19.3\,mag in 60 s exposures with 5\,mmag precision in the light curves of bright stars. The facility achieves sub-mmag photometric precision under stable survey conditions, approaching its photon noise limit. These results demonstrate that AST3-1 at Dome A is extraordinarily competitive in time-domain astronomy, including both quick searches for faint transients and the detection of tiny transit signals.