The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope is a modern aperture optical and

near-infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

telescope located on Cerro Pachón,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

at elevation. It was commissioned in 2003, and is operated by a consortium including the countries of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

, Michigan State University, the

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately ...

(CTIO) (part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, NOAO), and the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. Partners have guaranteed shares varying from 10 to 30 percent of the observing time. The telescope uses active optics on its primary and secondary mirrors to attain median image quality 0.7 arcsec at a wavelength of 500 nm. Multiple instruments are available on standby, mounted at unusually high weight-capacity Nasmyth foci and two lower capacity bent- Cassegrain foci. Switching is accomplished within a few minutes by rotating the 45° tertiary mirror. The pointing of this mirror is adjusted at high speed to prevent image blur from vibrations induced by wind-shake of the telescope structure.

Overview

Its optical specifications are: * M1 total diameter 4300mm * Entrance Pupil Diameter 4100mm * Pupil central Obstruction 980mm * M1 working f/# 1.6855 (no prime focus is available) * Focal plane working f/# 16.625 *

Effective Focal Length The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative focal ...

68176.3mm * Gamma ratio (dZ(foc)/dZ(M2)) 100.5 * Zero-Vignetting Field Diameter 14.4arcmin * Focal Plane Radius of curvature 966.3mm * Sag w/r to Maximum Field 10.59mm

Instruments

Current (5/2014) instruments are: * UV–optical 16-million pixel imager (SOI, CTIO) * near-infrared (1–2.4 μm wavelength) 1-million pixel

HgCdTe Hg1−xCdxTe or mercury cadmium telluride (also cadmium mercury telluride, MCT, MerCad Telluride, MerCadTel, MerCaT or CMT) is a chemical compound of cadmium telluride (CdTe) and mercury telluride (HgTe) with a tunable bandgap spanning the shortwav ...

imager and spectrograph (OSIRIS, Ohio State University/CTIO) * UV–optical 16-million pixel imager and spectrograph (Goodman Spectrograph, UNC) * near-infrared (1–2.4 μm wavelength) 16-million pixel HgCdTe imager (SPARTAN, MSU) * adaptive optics module (SAM, CTIO) Additional facility instruments are being commissioned: * UV–optical 16-million pixel integral-field spectrograph (SIFS, Brazil) User instruments are employed by individual astronomers or teams but not available to all users. US astronomers access the telescope remotely over the Internet 2. Chilean and Brazilian astronomers use their high-speed networks. An on-site operator controls where the telescope points while the remote astronomer controls the instrument and data retrieval. The SOAR telescope dome is a $2 million, , weatherproof structure weighing over 70 tons.

Gallery

File:SOAR_Below_the_Milky_Way.jpg, File:Star_Trails_over_SOAR.jpg,

References

External links

SOAR home site

MSU SOAR pages

UNC SOAR pages

Case History - Structural Adequacy of the Dome

Coordinates for Observatories on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachon
{{Portal bar, Chile, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science, Technology Optical telescopes Michigan State University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Astronomical observatories in Chile Buildings and structures in Coquimbo Region 2003 establishments in Chile NOIRLab

Overview

Instruments

Gallery

See also

References

External links