Proje»DAG-en

DAG-en

EASTERN ANATOLIA OBSERVATORY (DAG)
DPT (State Planning Org.) Project
(2011K120230)

This page will be updated regularly and Work Packages will be written in English.
Comments and suggestions are all welcome.

SUMMARY

Geography

  • The city Erzurum is located on a high plateau of ~1900 m altitude.
  • The site is covered with high East, North and South mountain ranges which make the site well hidden in a high altitude plateau (Erzurum plateau) preventing from sudden weather activity occurring in North (colder Black Sea region) and South (hotter Middle East and Mediterranean Sea).
  • The selected site, "Karakaya Tepeleri", has a ~3170 m summit on a mountain range of 2500-3170 m altitude.
  • Urbanization direction is well hidden in the foothills of the other mountain, "Palandöken Dağı" (3170m) which is along the opposite compass direction. In addition to this there exists a mountain range with heights around 2500 m between the city and the cite.

Infrastructure

  • Both road transport and the cable car, wired communications, electricity and water have been completed.

Transportation

  • The city can be reached by air from major cities of Turkey (duration is at most 2 hours).
  • It takes ~5 min from the airport to the city center.
  • The Konaklı center just beneath the Karakaya Tepeleri is ~30 min away from the university campus by car on an asphalt road. To reach to the summit there exists two cable cars which takes about ~5-20 min (depending on the season). If the cite is not covered with snow one can reach the summit by a car on a gravel road (~2-3 km).

Meteorology

  • Meteorological data have been collected since 2008.
  • A continuous data have been taken from both local stations and radiosondes of Regional Meteorological Directorate. Radiosondes are launched twice per day (noon and midnight).
  • Prevailing wind direction is due South and mean wind speed is usually fixed at a low value.
  • The inversion layer which was calculated via meteorological balloon (launched twice per day; noon and midnight) measurements is around 2100-2500m which also depends on the seasons. If there are higher clouds passing over the mountain ranges they cool down and settle on the plateau, clearing the site's sky.
  • The most promising meteorological parameters that promote the site's chance in IR observations were minimum humidity (1-3%), min humidity night count (approximately 5-10 days/year) and mean wind speed (approximately 2.3 m/s for the last 3 years).

Astronomical

  • In addition to these numbers, average clear night counts for the last 3 years were 288 (2008), 267 (2009) and 297 (2010). Even in the high seasonal variation times (April and October) clear night count is around 20 days/month.
  • A short-term DIMM observation (12 days in total with different atmospheric conditions from severe to steady) gave the minimum and median seeing values as 0.45 and 1.06 arcsec, respectively. A complete DIMM observation will be carried out starting from mid-2011.
  • The site's longitude is also favorable for network of telescopes. The closest potential large class telescopes around the site are:
    • China (Far East/LAMOST 4.9m)
    • Caucasus (North/BTA 6.0m)
    • Spain (West Europe/MPI-CAHA 3.5m)
    • ING (West/WHT 4.2m; GTC 10.4m)
  • The site can be counted as the 3rd highest point which is going to have a potential 3+ or 4+ class telescope (1st: Mounakea; 2nd: Arizona; 3rd Karakaya Tepeleri; 4th Haleakala).

METEOROLOGIC DATA coming soon