Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope

The Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) is a modern 4.1 m aperture optical & near-IR telescope located on Cerro Pachón, Chile at 2738 meters elevation. It was commissioned in 2003, and is operated by a consortium including the countries of Brazil and Chile, Michigan State University, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) (part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, NOAO), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The telescope attains median image quality 0.7 arcsec at 0.5 μm wavelength. Multiple instruments are available on standby, mounted at Nasmyth and bent-Cassegrain foci. Switching is accomplished within a few minutes by rotating the 45° tertiary mirror. This mirror is adjusted at high speed to prevent image blur from vibrations induced by wind-shake of the telescope structure.

Current (9/2007) instruments are
* UV–optical 16-million pixel imager (SOI, CTIO)
* near-infrared (1–2.4 μm wavelength) 1-million pixel HgCdTe imager and spectrograph (OSIRIS, Ohio State University/CTIO)

Additional instruments are scheduled to be commissioned in 2008 and 2009
* 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)
* near-infrared (1–5 μm wavelength) 1-million pixel high spectral resolution stellar spectrograph (Phoenix, NOAO)
* adaptive optics module (SAM, CTIO)
* UV–optical 16-million pixel integral-field spectrograph (SIFS, Brazil)

US astronomers access the telescope remotely over the Abilene Network. 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 $28 million dollar telescope produces images that rival the clarity of the Hubble Space Telescope. The SOAR telescope dome is a $2 million dollar, 66-foot diameter, weatherproof structure weighing over 70 tons. [citation
title = FEA Roundup: Design, Simulation and Analysis Converge
journal = Composites World
volume = 4/1/2007
url = http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/fea-roundup-design-simulation-and-analysis-converge.aspx]

See also

* List of largest optical reflecting telescopes

External links

* [http://www.soartelescope.org SOAR home site]
* [http://www.lna.br/soar/telescope.html Brazil SOAR pages]
* [http://www.pa.msu.edu/soarmsu/ MSU SOAR pages]
* [http://www.physics.unc.edu/research/astro/soar.php UNC SOAR pages]
* [http://www.nenastran.com/newnoran/chPDF/CASE_Soar_Observatory.pdf Case History - Structural Adequacy of the Dome]