Southern African Large Telescope

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The domed building of the SALT

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a large optical telescope in South Africa . The observatory is located on the Karoo plateau at 1760 m in the Roggeveld Mountains , 20 km northeast of the small town of Sutherland . It is one of the world's darkest locations, about 400 km northeast of Cape Town .

Furnishing

The segmented primary mirror of the SALT

SALT is built according to a cost-effective construction principle, in which the main mirror consisting of 91 hexagonal segments with a diameter of about 11 m stands still during observation. Instead, a smaller 'tracker' follows the movement of the sky. The light collecting power corresponds to that of a conventional telescope with a main mirror diameter of 9 to 10 m. Similar to the Hobby Eberly telescope , it has a fixed elevation angle ( zenith distance 37 °) and can only be moved in azimuth . The cost was around $ 20 million.

Research institutes in South Africa, Poland , USA , Germany , Great Britain , India and New Zealand are involved in SALT . The last mirror segment was used in May 2005 and the first images of the sky were published in September. The official opening was on November 10, 2005. However, the image quality initially fell short of expectations and was not satisfactory until 2010 after repairs.

See also

Web links

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  1. ↑ Africa's Giant Eye on the Sky , Fact Sheet (12 p.) For the 30th IAU Gen. Ass., Vienna 2018
  2. ^ David Buckley: Southern African Large Telescope: An overview of the design, progress and status. (PDF; 7.4 MB), April 25, 2005
  3. ↑ Darragh E. O'Donoghue et al .: The image quality of the Southern Africa Large Teleskcope (SALT) (PDF; 1.2 MB), 2008
  4. ↑ SALT Image Quality Fixup - A fairytale end to a loooong slog! , August 29, 2010

Coordinates: 32 ° 22 ′ 33 ″  S , 20 ° 48 ′ 38.43 ″  E