Southern African Large Telescope

Southern African Large Telescope
Physical characteristics


Organization	National Research Foundation Of South Africa
Location	Karoo, South Africa
Wavelength regime	optical
Completion date	2005
Webpage	http://www.salt.ac.za/
Telescope style	reflector
Diameter	11m
Collecting area	~95m²
Focal length	(m, ft)
Mounting	45 ton steel structure
Dome	25m spherical

The Southern African Large Telescope ('''SALT''') is an 11 metre (36 feet) diameter Optical Telescope , located in the semi-desert region of the Karoo , South Africa . It is a facility of the South African Astronomical Observatory , the national optical Observatory of South Africa.

SALT is the biggest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere , and equal to the largest in the world. It will enable photography and analysis of the radiation from astronomical objects out of reach of Northern Hemisphere telescopes.

First light with the full mirror was declared on 1 September 2005 with 1 arc second resolution images of Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae , Open Cluster NGC6152 , Spiral Galaxy NGC6744 , and the Lagoon Nebula being obtained. The official opening by President Thabo Mbeki took place during the inauguration ceremony on 10 November 2005 .

South Africa contributed about a third of the total of $36 million USD that will finance SALT for its first 10 years ($20 million for the construction of the telescope, $6 million for instruments, $10 million for operations). The rest was donated by the other partners. Germany , Poland , the United States , the United Kingdom and New Zealand are partners in the project.

GENERAL INFORMATION

SALT has been built on a hilltop in a Nature Reserve , 370 km (230 miles) northeast of Cape Town , near the small town of Sutherland. In March 2004, installation of the massive Mirror began. The last of the 91 smaller mirrored Hexagon segments was put in place in May 2005 .

Korea and Japan have telescopes at the site and South Africa has at least five optical telescopes there. The University Of Birmingham has a solar telescope to help monitor the Sun around the clock.

SALT will probe Quasar s and enable scientists to view stars and galaxies a billion times too faint to be seen by the Naked Eye .

INSTRUMENTATION

The first generation instrumentation for SALT includes the SALT Imaging Camera (SALTICAM), designed and built by the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO); the Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS) (nee Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph), a multi-purpose longslit and multi-object imaging spectrograph and spectropolarimeter, designed and built by the University Of Wisconsin-Madison , Rutgers University, and the SAAO; and a fiber-fed High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS), designed by the University Of Canterbury (New Zealand). SALTICAM was installed in early 2005, while the RRS was installed on 11 October 2005 and is currently still in its commissioning phase.

REMOTE CONTROL

It is understood that the partners to the project will be able to participate in controlling the facility and receive results in real time. However this will not be necessary for most observations, as SALT will be used primarily as a queue-scheduled telescope, where observations are planned well in advance and performed by local operators.

PARTNERS