Month: November 2016

Observing bright star Beta Pic with HRS at the SALT telescope tonight.

Second night of shadowing SALT Astronomer Dr. Marisse Kotze.

So far all good weather conditions for Spectroscopic observations and all science instruments of SALT working as expected.

The SALT instrument has a fixed spherical primary mirror which is made up of 91 segments of 1m hexagonal mirrors. Together these segments make up a 11m in diameter spherical mirror

 

 

Having a look at the SALT tracker: A spherical aberration corrector (SAC) mounted on a tracker beam at the prime focus delivers a high quality image to the focal plane and enables a celestial object to be followed for twelve degrees across the sky.

Having a look at the structure pads which are air -filled for lifting the entire structure of the fixed primary mirror system.

Tour of South African Large Telescope (SALT)

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) in the southern hemisphere is the largest optical/infrared telescope which is located in the Northern Cape in Sutherland, South Africa. The SALT instrument facilitates a 10-m class telescope with a fixed-altitude spherical primary mirror system for optical/infrared astronomy. The design of SALT is based on the first adopted Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET) in McDonald Observatory, Texas, USA. The SALT design is a tilted Arecibo concept with a segmented spherical primary mirror array of 11m in diameter, composed of 91 individual 1m hexagonal mirrors.

3 November 2016: Today, meeting at the telescope farm at the top of the mountain in Sutherland to choose a location to install the bRING all-sky camera.

Planning involved discussion about height of the concrete slab which bRING would be situated on as well as the solutions to mounting the housing/dome, supplying power, network connectivity and grounding.

2 November 2016, arrived at Sutherland.

Started meeting people around the observatory.