The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) is the first telescope facility built at Dome A, Antarctica. During the 2008 observing season, the installation provided long-baseline and high-cadence photometric observations in the i-band for 18,145 target
s within 20 deg2 CSTAR field around the South Celestial Pole for the purpose of monitoring the astronomical observing quality of Dome A and detecting various types of photometric variability. Using sensitive and robust detection methods, we discover 274 potential variables from this data set, 83 of which are new discoveries. We characterize most of them, providing the periods, amplitudes and classes of variability. The catalog of all these variables is presented along with the discussion of their statistical properties.
The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) is a group of four identical, fully automated, static 14.5 cm telescopes. CSTAR is located at Dome A, Antarctica and covers 20 square degree of sky around the South Celestial Pole. The installation is designe
d to provide high-cadence photometry for the purpose of monitoring the quality of the astronomical observing conditions at Dome A and detecting transiting exoplanets. CSTAR has been operational since 2008, and has taken a rich and high-precision photometric data set of 10,690 stars. In the first observing season, we obtained 291,911 qualified science frames with 20-second integrations in the i-band. Photometric precision reaches about 4 mmag at 20-second cadence at i=7.5, and is about 20 mmag at i=12. Using robust detection methods, ten promising exoplanet candidates were found. Four of these were found to be giants using spectroscopic follow-up. All of these transit candidates are presented here along with the discussion of their detailed properties as well as the follow-up observations.
