The PLATO observatory: robotic astronomy from the Antarctic plateau

• Published in: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2009-11, Vol.5 (H15), p.627-629
• Main Authors: Ashley, M. C. B., Allen, G., Bonner, C. S., Bradley, S. G., Cui, X., Everett, J. R., Feng, L., Gong, X., Hengst, S., Hu, J., Jiang, Z., Kulesa, C. A., Lawrence, J. S., Li, Y., Luong-Van, D. M., McCaughrean, M. J., Moore, A. M., Pennypacker, C., Qin, W., Riddle, R., Shang, Z., Storey, J. W. V., Sun, B., Suntzeff, N., Tothill, N. F. H., Travouillon, T., Walker, C. K., Wang, L., Yan, J., Yang, H., York, D. G., Yuan, X., Zhang, X., Zhang, Z., Zhou, X., Zhu, Z.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astronomy; Contributed Papers; Observatories; Robots; Telescopes
• ISSN: 1743-9213; 1743-9221
• DOI: 10.1017/S1743921310010811

PLATO is a 6 tonne completely self-contained robotic observatory that provides its own heat, electricity, and satellite communications. It was deployed to Dome A in Antarctica in January 2008 by the Chinese expedition team, and is now in its second year of operation. PLATO is operating four 14.5cm optical telescopes with 1k × 1k CCDs, a wide-field sky camera with a 2k × 2k CCD and Sloan g, r, i filters, a fibre-fed spectrograph to measure the UV to near-IR sky spectrum, a 0.2m terahertz telescope, two sonic radars giving 1m resolution data on the boundary layer to a height of 180m, a 15m tower, meteorological sensors, and 8 web cameras. Beginning in 2010/11 PLATO will be upgraded to support a Multi Aperture Scintillation Sensor and three AST3 0.5m schmidt telescopes, with 10k × 10 CCDs and 100TB/annum data requirements.