Study on Atmospheric Optical Turbulence above Mount Shatdzhatmaz in 2007–2013

We present the results of the atmospheric optical turbulence (OT) measurements performed atop Mount Shatdzhatmaz at the installation site of new 2.5 m telescope of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute. Nearly 300,000 vertical OT profiles from the ground up to an altitude of 23 km were obtained in the period of 2007 November-2013 June 2 with the combined multiaperture scintillation sensor (MASS) and differential image motion monitor (DIMM) instrument. The medians of the main OT characteristics, computed over the whole dataset are as follows: the integral seeing β0 = 0.96'', the free-atmosphere seeing βFA = 0.43'', and the isoplanatic angle θ0 = 2.07''. The median atmospheric time constant is τ0 = 6.57 ms. The revealed long-term variability of these parameters on scales of months and years implies the need to take it into account in astroclimatic campaign planning. For example, the annual variation in the monthly θ0 estimate amounts to 30%, while the time constant τ0 changes by a factor of 2.5. Evaluation of the potential of Mount Shatdzhatmaz in terms of high angular resolution observations indicates that in October-November, this site is as good as the best of studied summits in the world.