South African Astronomical Observatory Explained

South African Astronomical Observatory
Organization:National Research Foundation of South Africa
Code:51, B31, A60, L66
Location:Headquarters in Observatory, Cape Town
Major telescopes in Sutherland, Northern Cape
Coords:Headquarters: -33.9347°N 18.4776°W
Sutherland: -32.3783°N 20.8105°W
Telescope1 Name:SALT
Telescope1 Type:11m reflector
Telescope2 Name:1.9m
Telescope2 Type:1.9m reflector
Telescope3 Name:Infrared Survey Facility
Telescope3 Type:1.4m reflector
Telescope4 Name:MONET
Telescope4 Type:1.2m reflector
Telescope5 Name:1.0m
Telescope5 Type:1m reflector
Telescope6 Name:SuperWASP-South
Telescope6 Type:8x Canon 200mm f/1.8
Telescope7 Name:ACT
Telescope7 Type:75 cm reflector
Telescope8 Name:Solaris-1
Telescope8 Type:0.5m f/15 Ritchey–Chrétien
Telescope9 Name:Solaris-1
Telescope9 Type:0.5m f/15 Ritchey–Chrétien
Telescope10 Name:MeerLICHT
Telescope10 Type:0.6m f/5.5 modified Dall-Kirkham telescope

The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics. The primary telescopes are located in Sutherland, which is from Observatory, Cape Town, where the headquarters is located.

The SAAO has links worldwide for scientific and technological collaboration. Instrumental contributions from the South African Astronomical Observatory include the development of a spherical aberration corrector and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT).

The Noon Gun on Cape Town's Signal Hill is fired remotely by a time signal from the Observatory.

History

The history of the SAAO began when the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 1820, the first scientific institution in Africa.[1] Construction of the main buildings was completed in 1829 at a cost of £30,000[2] (equivalent to £ in).The post of His/Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope was awarded the Royal Medal on two occasions; the first to Thomas Maclear in 1869 for measurement of an arc of the meridian at the Cape of Good Hope[3] and the second to David Gill in 1903 for researches in solar and stellar parallax, and his energetic direction of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope.[4]

The Republic Observatory, Johannesburg, was merged with the much older Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope in January 1972 to form the South African Astronomical Observatory. In 1974 the Radcliffe Observatory telescope was purchased by the CSIR and moved to Sutherland, where it recommenced work in 1976.

SAAO was established in January 1972, as a result of a joint agreement by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa and Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of United Kingdom. The headquarters are located on the grounds of the old Royal Observatory where the main building, offices, national library for astronomy and computer facilities are housed. Historic telescopes are also found at the headquarters in a number of domes and a small museum that displays scientific instruments. The South African Astronomical Observatory is administered at present as a National Facility under management of the National Research Foundation (NRF), formerly the Foundation for Research Development (FRD). In 1974, when the Radcliffe Observatory in Pretoria closed, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) purchased the 1.9-m Radcliffe Telescope and transported it to Sutherland.[5]

Facilities

The observatory operates from the campus of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope that was established in 1820[6] in the suburb of Observatory, Cape Town.

The major observing facilities are, however, located near the town of Sutherland some from Cape Town. Sutherland was chosen because of its reliably clear and dark nights, but to ensure long term viability of the Karoo site astronomy instruments, the South African Parliament passed the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act in 2007. The act gives the Minister of Science and Technology the authority to protect areas, through regulations, that are of strategic national importance for astronomy and related scientific endeavours.

Telescopes

0.50m telescope

This 0.5m (01.6feet) reflector was originally built for the Republic Observatory in 1967, but was moved to the Sutherland site in 1972. No longer in use.

The 20" telescope was replaced with the Meerlicht telescope. The 20" telescope was relocated to the University of Freestate Boyden observatory and commissioned in ~2019[7]

0.75m telescope

A 0.75m (02.46feet) Grubb Parsons reflector.

1.0m Telescope

See also: Probing Lensing Anomalies Network.

This 40inches telescope was originally located at SAAO Head office in Observatory, Cape Town, but has since moved to the Sutherland site.[8] This telescope participates in the PLANET network.[9]

1.9m Telescope

See main article: Radcliffe Telescope.

The 1.9-m (74-inch) Radcliffe Telescope was commissioned for the Radcliffe Observatory in Pretoria where it was in use between 1948 and 1974. Following the closure of the Radcliffe Observatory it was moved to Sutherland where it became operational again in January 1976. Between 1951 and 2004 it was the largest telescope in South Africa.[10] The telescope was manufactured by Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co.[11]

Alan Cousins Telescope (ACT)

This 29.5inches telescope was originally called the Automatic Photometric Telescope, but has been renamed the Alan Cousins Telescope in honour of Alan William James Cousins.[12] [13]

BiSON

See main article: Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network.

One of six telescopes in the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network.

Infrared Survey Facility (IRSF)

The IRSF is a 140cm (60inches) reflector fitted with a 3 colour Infrared Imager.[14] Originally built as part of the Magellanic Clouds A Thorough Study grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2000.[15] Other studies the telescope participated in include:

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network

See main article: Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.

Three 1m (03feet) telescopes to form part of the LCOGT network were installed in early 2013.[17]

MASTER

The MASTER-SAAO Telescope (obs. code: K95) is part of the Russian Mobile Astronomical System of Telescope-Robots. It saw first light on 21 December 2014. It consists of two paired 0.4-m telescopes.[18] In April 2015 it discovered the first comet from South Africa in 35 years, C/2015 G2 (MASTER).[19]

MONET

One of the two 1.2m (03.9feet) telescopes of the MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes Project is located at Sutherland. Its twin can be found at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.[20] The MONET telescopes are Robotic telescope controllable via the Internet and was constructed by the University of Göttingen. Remote Telescope Markup Language is used to control the telescopes remotely.[21]

PRIME

PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiments is a 1.8m (05.9feet) telescope located in Sutherland.[22] PRIME achieved first light on October 8, 2022. Currently PRIME has a near-infrared camera located in its prime focus with a 1.29 square degree field of view. The telescope is a collaboration between Osaka University, University of Maryland,[23] South African Astronomical Observatory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center[24] and Astro-Biology Center. The project's primary science objective is the study of exoplanets using gravitational microlensing.[25]

Project Solaris

Two telescopes forming part of Project Solaris is located at the Sutherland site. Solaris-1 and Solaris-2 are both 0.5m f/15 Ritchey–Chrétien telescope. The aims of Project Solaris is to detect circumbinary planets around eclipsing binary stars and to characterise these binaries to improve stellar models.[26]

Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)

See main article: Southern African Large Telescope.

Observatory Code: B31

Observations: (Near Earth Objects)

SALT was inaugurated in November 2005. It is the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, with a hexagonal mirror array 11 meters across. SALT shares similarities with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas. The Southern African Large Telescope gathers twenty-five times as much light as any other existing African Telescope.[27] With this larger mirror array, SALT can record distant stars, galaxies and quasars.

SuperWASP-South

See main article: SuperWASP.

See also: List of extrasolar planets.

The Wide Angle Search for Planets consists of two robotic telescopes, the one located at SAAO Sutherland and the other at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canaries.[28] WASP-17b, the first exoplanet known to have a retrograde orbit was discovered in 2009 using this array.

KELT-South

KELT-South (Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope South) is a small robotic telescope that is designed to detect transiting extrasolar planets. The telescope is owned and operated by Vanderbilt University and was based on the design of KELT-North, which was conceived and designed at the Ohio State University, Department of Astronomy. The KELT-South telescope will serve as a counterpart to its northern twin, surveying the southern sky for transiting planets over the next few years.

MeerLICHT

Observatory Code:

Optical wide-field telescope, installed in 2017. It has a effective aperture, and a 1.65 x 1.65 degree field-of-view, sampled at 0.56"/pix. It was designed and manufactured in the Netherlands (Radboud University & NOVA) and is run by a consortium of Radboud University, University of Cape Town, the NRF/SAAO, the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester and the University of Amsterdam. It is the optical eye of MeerKAT, and has as its main-purpose to twin with the MeerKAT radio array to achieve a simultaneous optical-radio coverage of the Southern Skies. It is the prototype of the BlackGEM array, installed at ESO La Silla in Chile.

Yonsei Survey Telescopes for Astronomical Research (YSTAR)

Observatory Code:

The Yonsei Survey Telescopes for Astronomical Research (YSTAR), decommissioned in 2012, was used for the monitoring of variable stars and other transient events. YSTAR was a joint project between SAAO and the Yonsei University, Korea.[29]

Geophysical

South African Geodynamic Observatory Sutherland (SAGOS)

The GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam in co-operation with the National Research Foundation of South Africa constructed the SAGOS between 1998 and 2000.

SAGOS consist of a 1 Hz permanent GPS station, a superconducting gravimeter, meteorological sensors, and a tri-axial magnetometer. The GPS station is also used in support of the CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) space missions.[30]

SUR Station

The SUR station forms part of the International Deployment of Accelerometers Project and the Global Seismographic Network of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology[31] [32]

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The South African Astronomical Obsrvatory: Africa's Eye in the Sky . Laney . Dave . . 30 January 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090830014047/http://www.dst.gov.za/publications-policies/magazine/m00003/volume-3-2 . 30 August 2009 .
  2. News: The Transit of Venus – The Expedition at the Cape of Good Hope . 6 December 1874 . . 16 July 2011.
  3. Web site: Royal archive winners before 1900 . The Royal Society . 6 December 2008.
  4. Web site: Royal Medal Winners:1949 – 1900 . The Royal Society . 1 December 2008.
  5. Book: Heck, Andre . Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy III . 2002 . 978-1-4020-0812-2 . 160.
  6. Book: Holden, Edward Singleton . Hand-book of the Lick Observatory of the University of California . 1888 . 112 . https://archive.org/stream/handbookoflickob00holdrich#page/112/mode/1up/search/hope . 2 October 2010 . The Principal Observatories of the World.
  7. Web site: Astrophysics Research Facilities .
  8. Web site: The 40-inch Elizabeth telescope . South African Astronomical Observatory . 28 January 2009 . dead . https://archive.today/20120919073207/http://www.saao.ac.za/facilities/telescopes/10m/introduction/ . 19 September 2012 .
  9. Web site: It's Far, It's Small, It's Cool: It's an Icy Exoplanet! Distant Planet Brings Astronomers Closer To Home . 15 May 2009.
  10. Web site: Radcliffe 74-inch (1.9-m) . South African Astronomical Observatory . 3 May 2017.
  11. Book: Astronomical Instruments . 1956 . Grubb Parsons .
  12. Web site: The Alan Cousins Telescope Automatic Photometric Telescope . South African Astronomical Observatory . 29 January 2009 . dead . https://archive.today/20120909061804/http://www.saao.ac.za/facilities/telescopes/act/ . 9 September 2012 .
  13. Web site: Automatic Photometric Telescope (APT) . . 29 January 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110718104442/http://assa.saao.ac.za/html/his-tel-apt-75c_30i.html . 18 July 2011 .
  14. Web site: IRSF telescope . South African Astronomical Observatory . 30 January 2009 . dead . https://archive.today/20120909185710/http://www.saao.ac.za/assa/html/his-tel-irsf-1_4m_55i.html . 9 September 2012 .
  15. Nagata . Tetsuya . IRSF 1.4-m telescope continues providing wonderful images at SAAO . The Astronomical Herald . 98 . 3 . 137–138 . 0374-2466 . 2005AstHe..98..137N . 2005.
  16. 2003 . Near Infrared Survey of the Galactic Nuclear Bulge Region . Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India . 31 . 403 . 2003BASI...31..403B . Baliyan . K. S. . Ganesh . S. . Joshi . U. C. . Glass . I. S..
  17. Brown . T. M. . Baliber . N. . Bianco . F. B. . Bowman . M. . Burleson . B. . Conway . P. . Crellin . M. . Depagne . É. . De Vera . J.. Dilday. B. . Dragomir . D. . Dubberley . M. . Eastman . J. D. . Elphick . M. . Falarski . M. . Foale . S. . Ford . M. . Fulton . B. J. . Garza . J.. Gomez. E. L. . Graham . M. . Greene . R. . Haldeman . B. . Hawkins . E. . Haworth . B. . Haynes . R. . Hidas . M. . Hjelstrom . A. E. . Howell . D. A.. Hygelund. J. . Lister . T. A. . Lobdill . R. . Martinez . J. . Mullins . D. S. . Norbury . M. . Parrent . J. . Paulson . R. . Petry . D. L. . Pickles . A.. Posner. V. . Rosing . W. E. . Ross . R. . Sand . D. J. . Saunders . E. S. . Shobbrook . J. . Shporer . A. . Street . R. A. . Thomas . D. . Tsapras . Y.. Tufts. J. R. . Valenti . S. . Vander Horst . K. . Walker . Z. . White . G. . Willis . M. . Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network . Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific . 125 . 931 . 2013 . 1031–1055 . 0004-6280 . 10.1086/673168 . 1305.2437 . 2013PASP..125.1031B. 118585975 .
  18. http://196.21.94.34/ MASTER-SAAO
  19. Web site: C/2015 G2 (MASTER) is first South African Comet discovery in 35 years . Africa2Moon . 20 May 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150512084723/http://africa2moon.developspacesa.org/2015/04/13/c2015-g2-master-is-first-south-african-comet-discovery-in-35-years/ . 12 May 2015 . dead .
  20. Web site: Research Facilities . McDonald Observatory . 15 May 2009.
  21. Running MONET and SALT with Remote Telescope Markup Language 3.0 . May 2003 . American Astronomical Society Meeting 202, #38.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society . 753 . 2003AAS...202.3809H . Hessman . F. V. . Romero . E. . 202.
  22. Web site: SAAO Astronomers . 13 June 2023.
  23. Web site: UMD Astronomy: 2022 News . 13 June 2023.
  24. Web site: NASA’s Roman Mission Delivers Detectors to Japan’s PRIME Telescope . 13 June 2023.
  25. Web site: PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment . 13 June 2023.
  26. P. Sybilski . S.K. Kozłowsk . amp . Project Solaris a Southern Hemisphere robotic telescope networ . Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa . August 2011 . 70 . 7&8 . 131–135 . 0024-8266 . 2011MNSSA..70..131S.
  27. Web site: First Light . South African Large Telescope . 15 May 2009.
  28. Web site: Welcome to the WASP website . https://web.archive.org/web/20021208111324/http://www.superwasp.org/ . dead . 8 December 2002 . SuperWASP . 30 January 2009 .
  29. Web site: Telescopes . South African Astronomical Observatory . 30 January 2009.
  30. Web site: South African Geodynamic Observatory Sutherland (SAGOS) . Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences . 30 January 2009.
  31. Web site: Geophysical Facilities . South African Astronomical Observatory . 30 January 2009.
  32. Web site: Station SUR, Sutherland, Republic of South Africa . Project IDA . 30 January 2009.