摘要
The clarity of nights is the major factor that should be carefully considered for optical/infrared astronomical observatories in site-testing campaigns.Cloud coverage is directly related to the amount of time available for scientific observations at observatories.In this article,we report on the results of detailed night-time cloud statistics and continuous observing time derived from ground-based all-sky cameras(ASCs)at the Muztagh-ata site from 2017to 2021.Results obtained from acquisition data show that the proportion of the annual observing time at the Muztagh-ata site is 65%,and the best period with the least cloud coverage and longer continuous observing time is from September to February.We made a comparison of the monthly mean observing nights obtained from our ASC and CLARA data set,and results show that the discrepancy between them may depend on the cloud top heights.On average,this site can provide 175 clear nights and 169 nights with at least 4 hr of continuous observing time per year.
基金
supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) “Light of West China”Program (No.2022_XBQNXZ_014)
the Xinjiang Natural Science Foundation (Grant No.2022D01A357)
the Joint Research Fund in Astronomy under a cooperative agreement between the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)and the CAS (Grant No.U2031209)
the NSFC (Grant Nos.11873081,11603065,and 12073047)
resource sharing platform construction project of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (No.PT2306)。
