MASS at the AFR telescope
Data for September 5/6, 2005
A monitoring of the turbulence profile at the Maidanak Observatory (Republic of Uzbekistan, 66°56' E, 38°41' N, 2600m a.s.l.) has been started on August 15 by a collaboration of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow (Victor Kornilov, Ol'ga Voziakova, Boris Safonov, Nikolai Shatsky) with the Ulugh-Bek Astronomical Institute in Tashkent (Sabit Ilyasov, Mansur Ibrahimov, Yusuf Tillaev). By November 30, 2005, the data on some 80 nights have been accumulated.
The first-generation MASS instrument has been installed at the Astrometric Photographic Refractor (ARF) telescope (focal length 2.35 m, F/10). The objective lens of this telescope has a significant chromatic aberration, but this makes no effect on the MASS operation, except some focusing inconvenience. No intermediate optics between MASS and the telescope is used.
See the example of data for the night of September 5/6, 2005, with a very calm atmosphere. The plots show integrated seeing in the free atmosphere (above 2 km) and in the free atmosphere with boundary layer (above 0.5 km). The the evolution of the turbulence profile for the same night is shown below in half-tone representation.
MASS at the AFR telescope |
Data for September 5/6, 2005 |
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