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Session 54 - Ground and Instrumentation Techniques and Catalogs.
Display session, Wednesday, June 12
Tripp Commons,
We present narrow-bandwidth submillimeter-wave sky opacity measurements made from the South Pole between 17 February and 17 November 1995, a period which includes an entire Austral winter. These measurements were made with the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) using a heterodyne receiver tuned to a band which includes the 492 GHz fine-structure line of neutral atomic carbon. From day 100 to day 322 in 1995, the zenith opacity was below 0.84 neper/airmass 75neper/airmass 5025for submillimeter-wave astronomy throughout the Austral winter and spring.
The functional relationship between measured precipitable water vapor and 492 GHz opacity shows that a significant fraction of the opacity at 492 GHz is caused by atmospheric constituents other than water vapor, indicating the need for accurate, site-dependent atmospheric modeling when opacity measurements at other frequencies are extrapolated into the submillimeter.
This reserach was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under a cooperative agreement with the Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA), grant number NSF OPP 89-20223. CARA is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.
