Sutherland Karoo South Africa, Observatory, Astronomy, Spectroscopy

SCIENCE: Exploring the Universe

With a giant mirror gathering more than 20 times as much light as the largest existing African telescopes, SALT will have the power to tackle fundamental questions:

· What was the Universe like when the first stars were forming, and quasars were common?
· What kind of worlds orbit other suns?
· How are the stars in nearby galaxies different from stars near the Sun?
· What can these stars tell us about the scale and age of the Universe?
· How do quasars and gamma ray bursts outshine trillions of stars like the Sun?

Sutherland Observatory

S A A O
Sutherland Observatory

Probably one of the most important reasons why anyone visits Sutherland can be found 18 km outside of the town in the direction of Fraserburg, the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere namely SALT (Southern African Largest Telescope).

Guided tours takes place Mondays to Fridays at 10h30 and 14h30,
Saturdays at 11h30 and 14h30. Kindly contact 023 5712 436 to ensure a booking.

The official opening of our second Salt telescope took place on the 11th November 2005.

We also now have our own 8 inch Go To Telescope - the only one of it's size in town!

Visit their website at the following addresses:www.saao.ac.za & www.salt.ac.za

AFRICA'S GIANT EYE

Over the next several years, South Africa and its German, Polish and American partners will build the largest single telescope in the southern hemisphere, with a hexagonal mirror array 11 metres across. Although similar to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas, the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) will have a redesigned optical system using more of the mirror array. SALT will be able to record distant stars, galaxies and quasars a billion times too faint to see with the unaided eye - as faint as a candle flame at the distance of the moon.

Facts about the town itself..

TECHNOLOGY: Building New Tools

SALT will engage South African industry in a project that will change and extend industrial capabilities. As much as 70% of the cost of construction and development will be spent in South Africa. The very low cost of SALT (about a fifth of the cost of a conventional 10-metre telescope) is made possible by optimising for spectroscopy, and by drastically simplifying the telescope mounting. In conventional telescopes, massive, expensive precision engineering allows the telescope to point anywhere in the sky at any time, and moves the whole telescope to track the stars as the Earth rotates. SALT will move only in azimuth, rotating into position on air bearings and remaining stationary during each observation. Precision pointing and tracking will be handled by the moving optical corrector assembly at the top of the telescope tube, which allows SALT to reach objects in a circular band on the sky 12º wide and centred 37º from the zenith. Few observations take longer than the 1-2 hours during which the moving corrector assembly can track a star, and more than 70% of the sky will be accessible. South African companies have expressed strong interest in building the very complex tracking module, despite the demanding requirements. Six degrees of freedom are required in motions precise enough to maintain image size at less than one ten thousandth of a degree, with a moving mass of 5 metric tons.

· Maximum mirror diameter: 11 metres
· Mirror type: 91 hexagonal segments, each 1 metre wide
· Mirror thickness: 50mm
· Accuracy of mirror surface: 0.052 microns
· Field size: 8 arcminutes, about ¼ the apparent diameter of the moon and twice the field diameter available with HET
· Maximum resolution: 0.25 arcseconds - the size of a 2-RAND coin about 10 kilometres away
· Multiple object capability: 10-40 objects with fibre probes or slitlets
· Principal planned instruments: low to medium resolution spectrograph and imaging camera, high resolution spectrograph
· Wavelength capability: 320 nm to 2500 nm (human eye 400 - 700 nm)
· Telescope mass: 82 metric tons
· Design: modified version of Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas
· Telescope cost: 20 Million Dollar
· Construction period: 2000-2005

PARTNERS in SALT
Government and academic institutions in 4 countries have so far joined in building SALT.

· Germany: University of Göttingen
· Poland
· South Africa
· United States of America: Rutgers University, University of Wisconsin, Hobby-Eberly Telescope Board, Carnegie Mellon University

Visit their website at the following address: http://www.salt.ac.za

CLEAR DARK SKIES	Maps	AFRICA AMONG THE STARS

SALT will be built near Sutherland in South Africa's Northern Cape province. On this dessert hilltop far from city lights and pollution, the telescope of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) has operated for the last quarter century.		Astronomy has a unique capability to spark the imagination, to persuade young and old that science and technology are exciting. SALT is a flagship project, intended to demonstrate that the frontiers of science are not entirely reserved for the developed world. It will provide a first-class facility for fundamental research in Africa in a field where South Africa has a long history of excellence. It will strengthen ties with researchers around the world, and provide opportunities for young scientists and engineers in a stimulating high-technology environment. Through visitors' centres and educational outreach, it will bring the stars home to Africa.

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