The astrophysical value of continuous photometric monitoring from the Antarctic Plateau

Among the astrophysical researches which will largely benefit from observation from the Antarctic Plateau, we consider those which require high quality continuous, daylight uninterrupted, observation in the optical- near IR region. The systematic study of the stellar micro-oscillations and surface activity of individual objects, as well as of stellar associations extended for periods of weeks, will give a fundamental contribution to our knowledge of the stellar structure and will ultimately provide the physical parameters of the stars. Similar consideration applies for the short-period (a few hours to a few days) binaries, which include the W UMa contact binaries. These objects are subject to continuously varying light curves associated with surface activity and secular effects, which cannot be adequately studied from the currently available ground telescopes. Finally, the exceptional seeing and low background will allow the systematic search for and study of supernovae in clusters of galaxies at cosmological distances, which will improve our knowledge of the geometry of the Universe at z in the range 0.7-1.