Southern African Large Telescope, Optical telescope in Sutherland, South Africa
The Southern African Large Telescope is an optical observatory in Sutherland built from 91 hexagonal mirrors arranged together to form a surface 10 meters across. These segments create a curved reflective surface that gathers light from distant sky objects and directs it to a single focal point.
Construction began in the late 1990s as a joint effort by several countries, including South Africa and European partners. The facility opened in 2005 and marked a turning point for astronomy on the African continent.
The name marks it as the South African Astronomical Observatory's flagship instrument in the Karoo, built with partners from Germany, Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The Robert Stobie Spectrograph, a multi-purpose instrument for long-slit and multi-object spectroscopy, was designed by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rutgers University and the SAAO, and installed on 11 October 2005.
The telescope stands on a hilltop 1837 m above sea level in a nature reserve in the Hantam, Karoo, 370 km north-east of Cape Town near Sutherland. The mirror keeps a fixed altitude and azimuth during observations, so viewing is limited to a set window per target. Nights at this height are cold; bring warm clothing.
Each of the 91 mirror elements is controlled individually by computer and adjusts its position several times per second. This constant fine-tuning compensates for temperature shifts and wind effects so that all mirrors together produce a sharp image.
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