The phase II optical site selection testing of Qinghai station, Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) was carried out during March 17-26 2010. The main purposes of this testing are: the systematically calibration of the data observed by the seeing monitor, which was installed in the Phase I project and has been working continuously for one month, and the preparation work for the long term monitoring for seeing and weather.
Two preliminary results have been derived from the testing:
1) During February 4 to March 15, SBIG seeing monitor detected about 20-night available data of Polaris. The statistic data show that seeing in Qinghai Station has a median value of 1.3". The seeing is better than 2" in 70% of observational time.
2) From the testing results, there is a systematic error about 0.3" between the SBIG and DIMM. If this error is taken into account, the seeing median in Qinghai station during February would be about 1". But the wild sand and dust storm attacked the whole north China, only a few reliable data was taken. More observations are needed to verify these results. |
