The First Release of the CSTAR Point Source Catalog from Dome A, Antarctica

Abstract

In 2008 January the twenty-fourth Chinese expedition team successfully deployed the Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) to Dome A, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau. CSTAR consists of four 14.5 cm optical telescopes, each with a different filter (g, r, i, and open) and has a 4.5° × 4.5° field of view (FOV). It operates robotically as part of the Plateau Observatory, PLATO, with each telescope taking an image every ~30 s throughout the year whenever it is dark. During 2008, CSTAR 1 performed almost flawlessly, acquiring more than 0.3 million i-band images for a total integration time of 1728 hr during 158 days of observations. For each image taken under good sky conditions, more than 10,000 sources down to ~16th magnitude could be detected. We performed aperture photometry on all the sources in the field to create the catalog described herein. Since CSTAR has a fixed pointing centered on the south celestial pole (decl. = -90°), all the sources within the FOV of CSTAR were monitored continuously for several months. The photometric catalog can be used for studying any variability in these sources, and for the discovery of transient sources such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and minor planets.