Antarctic site testing: First daytime seeing monitoring at Dome C

Abstract

The first astronomical seeing monitoring has been made with a DIMM instrument at the Antarctic plateau site of Dome C in December, 2002 on the bright star Canopus (α Eri) during the daytime. In these far from optimal conditions, a median seeing value of 1.20 arcsec as been obtained, with extended periods better than 1 arcsec and 12 percent of the time better than 0.75 arcsec.