J/MNRAS/520/5635 AST3-2 SN point source automatic survey (Yang+, 2023)
Data release of the AST3-2 automatic survey from Dome A, Antarctica.
Yang X., Hu Y., Shang Z., Ma B., Ashley M.C.B., Cui X., Du F., Fu J.,
Gong X., Gu B., Jiang P., Li X., Li Z., Tao C., Wang L., Xu L., Yang S.-H.,
Yu C., Yuan X., Zhou J.-L., Zhu Z.
<Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 520, 5635-5650 (2023)>
=2023MNRAS.520.5635Y 2023MNRAS.520.5635Y (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Surveys ; Stars, variable ; Supernovae ; Exoplanets ;
Positional data ; Stars, normal ; Photometry ; Optical
Keywords: surveys - catalogues - stars: variables: general
Abstract:
AST3-2 is the second of the three Antarctic Survey Telescopes, aimed
at wide-field time-domain optical astronomy. It is located at Dome A,
Antarctica, which is by many measures the best optical astronomy site
on the Earth's surface. Here we present the data from the AST3-2
automatic survey in 2016 and the photometry results. The median 5σ
limiting magnitude in i-band is 17.8 mag and the light-curve precision
is 4 mmag for bright stars. The data release includes photometry for
over 7 million stars, from which over 3500 variable stars were
detected, with 70 of them newly discovered. We classify these new
variables into different types by combining their light-curve features
with stellar properties from surveys such as StarHorse.
Description:
The second AST3 telescope AST3-2 was deployed at Dome A, Antarctica in
2015. In 2016, it worked fully automatically on a sky survey for SNe
and semi-automatically on an exo-planet search. In this work, we
report on the 2016 SN survey data observed between March 23 and May
16. We surveyed 2200 deg2 fields with about 30 visits each in a
cadence of a half to a few days. After the raw data were retrieved, we
pre-processed the data, performed aperture photometry, calibrated the
magnitudes, obtained the light curves of the 565 sky fields as shown
in fields.dat, and briefly studied the variability of the light
curvesas available in NADC website. In this paper, we present the data
release of the photometric data from the AST3-2 SN survey in 2016. It
consists of 22000 scientific images, 7 million sources brighter than
i ∼18 with photometry, astrometry, and light curves as exposed in
tables of iband folder and in sources.dat.
Concerning AST3 telescope AST3-2, it has the same modified Schmidt
optical design as the AST3-1. It has a 680 mm primary mirror, an
entrance pupil diameter of 500 mm, a 3.73 f-ratio, and an SDSS i
filter. AST3-2 is equipped with a 10 K*10 K CCD with a pixel size
of 9 µm. The mode has been dedicated mostly for SNe detections.
Also, the AST3-2 exoplanet project is named the CHinese Exoplanet
Searching Program from Antarctica (CHESPA) to search for short-period
exoplanets rapidly and continuously.
More, as refered in section 5.3, we exposed the new 70 variables found
in our survey, their informations, properties and sub-types are
presented in tablea1.dat.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
fields.dat 63 565 The AST3-2 covering fields in 2200 deg2
sources.dat 144 7702650 All i-band magnitude for our AST3-2 sources
in the 565 fields
tablea1.dat 73 70 Photometry, stellar properties and variability
informations of our new variable candidates
iband/* . 565 The AST3-2 i-band magnitude for our sources
samples peer covering fields
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
J/MNRAS/479/111 : AST3-1 Point Source Catalogue (Ma+, 2018)
J/ApJS/240/16 : Exoplanets in the Antarctic sky. I. AST3-II DR1
(Zhang+, 2019)
J/ApJS/240/17 : Exoplanets in the Antarctic sky. II. 116 candidates
(Zhang+, 2019)
J/AJ/153/104 : Variables observed in the Galactic disk by AST3-1
(Wang+, 2017)
J/AJ/151/166 : Stellar flares and variables from 2009-2010 CSTAR
(Oelkers+, 2016)
J/AJ/142/155 : Variable stars photometry from Dome A (Wang+, 2011)
J/PASP/122/347 : Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) (Zhou+, 2010)
II/358 : SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey. DR1.1 (Wolf+, 2018)
II/336 : AAVSO Photometric All Sky Survey (APASS) DR9 (Henden+, 2016)
I/312 : PPMX Catalog of positions and proper motions (Roeser+ 2008)
I/349 : StarHorse, Gaia DR2 photo-astrometric distances
(Anders+, 2019)
I/322 : UCAC4 Catalogue (Zacharias+, 2012)
I/320 : SPM 4.0 Catalog (Girard+, 2011)
B/vsx : AAVSO International Variable Star Index VSX (Watson+, 2006-)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: fields.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 17 A17 --- Field The covering field name as
(FDDD.dddd±DD.dddd)
19- 26 F8.4 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000)
28- 35 F8.4 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000)
37- 42 I6 --- Nbr Number of the sources in the field
44- 63 A20 --- FileName Name of the field file in iband folder
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: sources.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 25 A25 --- Field The covering field name as (FDDD.dddd±DD.dddd)
(Field)
27- 48 A22 --- AST3II Source target identifier as
(AST3IIDDD.dddd±DD.dddd) (ID)
50- 74 F25.21 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000) (RA)
76- 94 F19.15 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000) (Dec.)
96-117 E22.17 mag imag Median aperture magnitudes in AST3-2 SDSS i
band filter (MAG)
119-140 E22.17 mag e_imag Standard deviation of imag (MAGERR)
142-144 I3 --- o_AST3II Number of observations (COUNT)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 22 A22 --- AST3II Source target identifier as
(AST3IIDDD.dddd±DD.dddd) (ID)
24- 27 F4.1 mag imag Median aperture magnitudes in AST3-2 SDSS i
band filter (MAG)
29- 34 F6.2 d Per Variability period (Period)
36- 39 F4.2 mag Amp Amplitude of variability (Amplitude)
41- 44 A4 -- Type Type of variable (Type) (1)
46- 49 F4.2 mag B-V The B-V colour magnitude (B-V)
51- 56 A6 --- r_B-V Literature reference of B-V values
(B-Vreference) (2)
58- 62 I5 K Teff ? Effective temperature taken from StarHorse
catalogue of Anders et al.
2019A&A...628A..94A 2019A&A...628A..94A , Cat. I/349 (Teff)
64- 67 F4.2 [cm/s2] logg ? Surface gravity taken from StarHorse
catalogue of Anders et al.
2019A&A...628A..94A 2019A&A...628A..94A , Cat. I/349 (logg)
69- 73 F5.2 [Sun] [Fe/H] ? Iron to hydrogen abundance ratio taken from
StarHorse catalogue of Anders et al.
2019A&A...628A..94A 2019A&A...628A..94A , Cat. I/349 ([Fe/H])
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): As explicted in section 5.3, types are as follows:
EC = eclipsing binary, 4 occurences in our sample
LPV = long-period variables, 17 occurences in our sample
PUL = pulsating stars, 5 occurences in our sample
ROT = rotational variables, 24 occurences in our sample
ROT? = possible rotational variables, 20 occurences in our sample
Note (2): Literature reference catalogs are as follows:
APASS9 = AAVSO Photometric All Sky Survey DR9 of
Henden et al. 2015AAS...22533616H, Cat. II/336,
3 sources in our sample
NOMAD = The Naval Observatory Merged Astrometric Dataset of
Zacharias et al. 2004AAS...205.4815Z 2004AAS...205.4815Z, Cat. I/297,
7 sources in our sample
SPM4.0 = Yale/San Juan Southern Proper Motion Catalog 4,
Girard et al. 2011AJ....142...15G 2011AJ....142...15G, Cat. I/320,
1 source in our sample
UCAC4 = Fourth U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog of
Zacharias et al. 2013AJ....145...44Z 2013AJ....145...44Z, Cat. I/322,
59 sources in our sample
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: iband/*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 22 A22 --- AST3II Source target identifier as
(AST3IIDDD.dddd±DD.dddd) (ID)
24- 48 F25.21 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000) (RA)
50- 68 F19.15 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000) (Dec.)
70- 91 E22.17 mag imag Median aperture magnitudes in AST3-2 SDSS i
band filter (MAG)
93-114 E22.17 mag e_imag Standard deviation of imag (MAGERR)
116-118 I3 --- o_AST3II Number of observations (COUNT)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
License: CC-BY-4.0 [see https://spdx.org/licenses/]
(End) Luc Trabelsi [CDS] 15-Apr-2026