System design and initial results of all sky imager at south pole

We have developed an all-sky optical imager (ASI) which was installed at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (SP) in the 1996-1997 austral summer season. ASI consists of a highly sensitive (monochromatic and panchromatic) optical lens, CCD camera, and a data-taking workstation. The ASI is equipped with interference filters of N ₂ ⁺ 427.8 nm, OI 557.7 nm, OI 630.0 nm, and OH 730.0 nm. The image sensor is a back-illuminated air-cooled CCD camera with 512×512 pixels. The size of each pixel is 24 μm×24 μm. The workstation (WS) is controlled from NIPR via the internet and stores the image data to a digital linear tape (DLT) drive. Selected image data can be sent to NIPR via the Internet during the observational period. We present the detailed system configuration, the data formats and the initial images taken by the ASI-SP system.