engleski

Variable atmospheric transparency studies for the MAGIC telescopes

MAGIC is a stereoscopic system of two 17 m Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACT) located on the Canary island of La Palma. As the atmosphere is the essential part of any IACT detector, generally a good atmospheric transparency is needed. Observations are still possible with the presence of thin clouds or calima (i.e. sand dust from the Sahara in the air), but data quality is reduced in that case. We use Monte Carlo simulations of variable atmospheric transparency (VAT) to quantify the impact of aerosols (clouds or calima) on the MAGIC data quality. VAT simulations, combined with measurements on site (such as pyrometer or LIDAR), can improve the assessment of the data quality. Furthermore, this may allow for correcting the effect introduced by the reduced transparency of the atmosphere, which leads to an extension of the total observation time. This is particularly important for long term monitoring of TeV sources and can be also used for site evaluation of new observatories. First results of our Monte Carlo simulations are presented here.

variable atmospheric transparency ; aerosol ; Monte Carlo simulations ; MAGIC ; LIDAR

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