Instruments

SOAR INSTRUMENTS

Goodman Spectrograph: High-throughput low/medium-resolution optical spectrograph

Spartan Infrared Camera: Near-IR imager built at MSU (PI: Ed Loh)

TripleSpec Infrared Spectrograph: Near-IR spectrograph

SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM): Low-order AO-corrected imager

 

SOAR SUBSYSTEMS

The Enclosure

Achieves precise heat control by means of forced ventilation through a small dome area, set above a small building.

Unusually enclosed design promotes highly accurate telescope tracking through its control of wind buffeting.

The building was designed in the US and constructed by local Chilean contractors.

The dome was built in Brazil, using fiberglass panels from a US firm.

The Mount and Drives

Built by Vertex-RSI Corp. in Texas.

Uses rolling element bearings for both altitude and azimuth.

2 arcsec rms blind pointing, 0.2 arcsec rms offsetting error, 0.2 arcsec rms tracking jitter.

Achieves very high pointing and tracking specs compared to most large telescopes.

Pre-assembled and tested in factory, thoroughly tested in its dome on Cerro Pachon before arrival of the optics system.

Throughout 2002, a 10-inch telescope mounted on the side of the main telescope was used to debug and verify pointing and tracking.

4.1m primary mirror

Very high optical quality: 17 nm rms surface,low thermal mass. Primary mirror is 4 inches thick.

Active optics system

120-actuator control of primary,secondary on active hexapod. Image analyzer permanently mounted at one instrument port.

Tip-tilt tertiary mirror

Rapid tip-tilt correction at all foci.

 

SOAR Features

Many instruments are permanently mounted.

2 Nasmyth clusters, 3 instruments each

2 Folded-cassegrain foci

Rapid selection between instruments

60 seconds to switch

At least two instruments are always ready.