Global Site Selection for Astronomy

Download

index.pdf

Date

2020-03-01

Author

AKSAKER, NAZIM
Yerli, Sinan Kaan
Erdogan, M. A.
Kurt, Z.
Kaba, K.
Bayazit, M.
YEŞİLYAPRAK, Cahit

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

328
views

244
downloads

A global site selection for astronomy was performed with 1 km spatial resolution (similar to 1 gigapixel in size) using long-term and up-to-date datasets to classify the entire terrestrial surface of the Earth. Satellite instruments are used to get the following datasets of geographical information system (GIS) layers: cloud coverage, digital elevation model, artificial light, precipitable water vapour, aerosol optical depth, wind speed, and land use and land cover. A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique is applied to these datasets, creating four different series where each layer will have a specific weight. We introduce for the first time a suitability index for astronomical sites (SIAS). This index can be used to find suitable locations and to compare different sites or observatories. The midwestern Andes in South America and the Tibetan Plateau in western China were found to be the best in all SIAS series. Considering all the series, less than 3 per cent of all terrestrial surfaces are found to be the best regions to establish an astronomical observatory. In addition to this, only approximately 10 per cent of all current observatories are located in good locations in all SIAS series. Amateurs, institutions or countries aiming to construct an observatory could create a shortlist of potential site locations using a layout of SIAS values for each country without spending time and budget. The outcomes and datasets of this study have been made available through a website, the Astro GIS Database, at www.astrogis.org.

Subject Keywords

Space and Planetary Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/36276

Journal

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa201

Collections

Department of Physics, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Radial and nonradial oscillations of 44 Tauri Civelek, R; Kiziloglu, N; Kirbiyik, H (American Astronomical Society, 2001-10-01) Evolutionary stellar models of 44 Tauri, a multiperiodic delta Scuti star, have been developed theoretically and compared with earlier observational reports. The models depict 44 Tau at the hydrogen-shell-burning stage, when it is in radiative equilibrium with a very thin surface convective layer. Using the models, we performed calculations to obtain radial and nonradial adiabatic oscillation frequencies, and the equations were treated linearly. The results showed that the radial fundamental (6.899 cycles d...
Optical imaging and spectroscopic observation of the galactic supernova remnant G85.9-0.6 GÖK, FATMA; Sezer, A.; Aktekin, E.; Guever, T.; Ercan, N. (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2009-11-01) Optical CCD imaging with H alpha and [SII] filters and spectroscopic observations of the galactic supernova remnant G85.9-0.6 have been performed for the first time. The CCD image data are taken with the 1.5 m Russian-Turkish Telescope (RTT150) at TBA degrees TAK National Observatory (TUG) and spectral data are taken with the Bok 2.3 m telescope on Kitt Peak, AZ.
Upper limits to the SN1006 multi-TeV gamma-ray flux from HESS observations Aharonian, F; et. al. (EDP Sciences, 2005-07-01) Observations of the shell-type supernova remnant SN1006 have been carried out with the HESS system of Cherenkov telescopes during 2003 (18.2 h with two operating telescopes) and 2004 (6.3 h with all four telescopes). No evidence for TeV gamma-ray emission from any compact or extended region associated with the remnant is seen and resulting upper limits at the 99.9% confidence level are up to a factor 10 lower than previously-published fluxes from CANGAROO. For SN1006 at its current epoch of evolution we def...
Age determination of the open cluster NGC 2287 (M41) Küçük, İbrahim; Eryurtezer, Dilan (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 1988) We have estimated the age of the open cluster NGC 2287 (M41) by taking into account the rotation of the member stars. TheUBV photoelectric measurement values were taken from Eggen (1974). Besides the Main-Sequence stars this cluster has seven red giants, all of them above the turn-off point. Having obtained the theoretical Hertzsprung-Russell diagram from observed colour-magnitude diagram, we have discussed two methods, given in the literature, to estimate the age of the cluster under consideration. The f...
LOCALIZING INTEGRAL SOURCES WITH CHANDRA: X-RAY AND MULTI-WAVELENGTH IDENTIFICATIONS AND ENERGY SPECTRA Tomsick, John A.; Bodaghee, Arash; Chaty, Sylvain; Rodriguez, Jerome; Rahoui, Farid; Halpern, Jules; KALEMCİ, EMRAH; Arabaci, Mehtap Ozbey (American Astronomical Society, 2012-08-01) We report on Chandra observations of 18 hard X-ray (>20 keV) sources discovered with the INTEGRAL satellite near the Galactic plane. For 14 of the INTEGRAL sources, we have uncovered one or two potential Chandra counterparts per source. These provide soft X-ray (0.3-10 keV) spectra and subarcsecond localizations, which we use to identify counterparts at other wavelengths, providing information about the nature of each source. Despite the fact that all of the sources are within 5 degrees of the plane, four o...

Citation Formats

N. AKSAKER et al., “Global Site Selection for Astronomy,” MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, pp. 1204–1216, 2020, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/36276.