Small IRAIT Telescope operations during the polar night

摘要

Small IRAIT is a 25 cm Cassegrain telescope, installed at Dome C, on the high Antarctic plateau, during 2007 winter campaign. It performed a first test of multiband (UBVRI) photometry from Dome C, taking advantage of its remote control system that allowed a 10 days, 98% duty cycle run on a chromospherically active, spotted star in Cen (V841); it also tested multiband acquisition on open clusters, AGB stars, blazars (PKS2155), eclipsing binaries. In situ optimization made the telescope able to operate in the cold, harsh Antarctic environment.