IRAIT: A Facility for IR Astronomy at Dome C

摘要

The IRAIT (International Robotic Antarctic Infrared Telescope) telescope will be the first European infrared telescope operated on the Antarctic Plateau. The main IRAIT Focal Plane Instrument is AMICA (Antarctic Multiband Infrared CAmera), a two-detector instrument designed to operate in the Near- and Mid-infrared (2-28 µm) regions. IRAIT will start operation during the 2007–2008 Antarctic campaign, though the instrumentation will reach Antarctica one year before, at the end of 2006. It will offer a unique opportunity to test the science that can be done from Dome C (in this sense it is a precursor for larger facilities as PILOT). We briefly describe the telescope and its auxiliary equipment, and we present example of the kind of science that will be feasible with this infrared observatory of moderate size.