News
SIFS First Light
The SOAR Integral Field Spectrograph (SIFS) obtained its first spectrum of an astronomical object on the night of 28th April. The first target was the bright star HR4023, the second an even brighter double star Alpha Crucis.
SIFS arrives
The SOAR Integral Field Spectrograph (SIFS) was delivered to SOAR on 10 Dec 2009. After arriving at Cerro Pachon in great shape, SIFS had its completed its off telescope integration first engineering on 18 Dec 2009. The Brazilian instrument team (Bruno Castilho, Flávio Ribeiro and Márcio Arruda, from LNA), helped by SOAR technical and science staff released the 1.2 ton of equipment (including test and handling material) from the boxes, and assembled the spectrograph. The instrument consists of three sub-systems: fore-optics, fiber cable and bench spectrograph. All parts were tested in the telescope for mechanical assembly and to make final adjustments in the fiber cable path.
SOAR Engineering Shutdown
The SOAR Telescope will be in Engineering Shutdown from 05 October to 27 November 2009. During this time we will be re-coating all three mirrors, the Primary mirror in the coating plant at Gemini South, and the smaller secondary and tertiary in the aluminizing tank of the 1.5m telescope on Tololo. The Mirrors have not been re coated since they were originally installed in the telescope in January 2004. (Updated 10 November 2009)
SAM Sees First Light
August 6th, at about 9 pm, the SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM) saw first light: through heavy clouds, with terrible seeing to be sure, but it did its job and improved the quality of the images (of one of the brightest stars in the southern hemisphere!). SAM is a multi-year project, and this occasion marks a major milestone in its development; next year we will complete it with the addition of a laser guide star. The SAM instrument is a new kind of Adaptive Optics instrument which exploits Ground Layer Seeing Compensation. The project was proposed by Project Scientist Andrei Tokovinin and has been built by a large group of engineers in the CTIO Engineering and Technical Services division in La Serena. The photograph shows SAM being lifted up to its position on the Instrument Support Box (behind the operator) on the Optical Nasmyth platform of SOAR.
SOAR Postdoctoral Fellow
The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) consortium invites applicants for a three-year postdoctoral fellow position at its facilities in Chile. The 4.1-m SOAR Telescope is a state-of-the-art observatory located on Cerro Pachón adjacent to Gemini-South. It is equipped with a large suite of instruments including the SOAR Optical Imager, the Spartan near IR camera, the OSIRIS near IR imager/spectrograph and the Goodman Optical Spectrograph. The SOAR Adaptive-optics module (SAM) a ground layer adaptive optics module and an IFU-fed optical spectrograph (SIFS) will be commissioned in the coming year, while it is anticipated that a high resolution optical spectrograph (STELES) will be delivered during 2011. SOAR is owned by a consortium, whose members are the Federative Republic of Brazil, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Michigan State University, and is operated on their behalf by NOAO.
