News
New SOAR website
Over the past 2 months, 3 developers contributed to the new SOAR website using Plone. Plone is a free and open source content management system built on top of the Zope application server. The SOAR Website has seen a substantial increase in activity. This is a good sign that interest in this project is rising, and that the SOAR community has embraced this project.
Spartan IRC Arrives
The Spartan Infrared Camera (IRC) was delivered to the SOAR facility on Cerro Pachon on 7th October. Laboratory tests performed on arrival successfully reproduced the results of similar tests carried our prior to shipping, demonstrating that the instrument arrived in good condition. Thus all is ready for initial testing on the telescope, expected to begin in mid November.
SOAR Mirror Makes Another Journey
The SOAR primary mirror took another trip today, but this time only the 300m from the Gemini South Telescope where it was successfully aluminized on January 28, 2004 to its final resting place in the SOAR facility.
Primary Mirror Successfully Aluminized
The SOAR Primary mirror, 4.3m (14 feet) in diameter, but only 10cm (4 inches) thin, weighs 3,200kg (7000 lbs) and is made of ULE a special, low expansion, glass produced by Corning Inc. at their Canton NY. Plant. The mirror was polished to a perfect aspheric shape to within 17 nanometers RMS. (0.00000067 inches RMS), by the Electro Optical Systems Division of the Goodrich Corporation in Danbury Connecticut. After five years of development the mirror finally delivered to Cerro Pachón on January, 9 2004.
SOAR Mirror Delivered to Cerro Pachon
The AOS began its 10,000 km odyssey on 10th December when it was trucked from the Danbury, CT, plant of contractor Goodrich Corporation to the port of New York. There it was loaded onto the freighter, SS Sea Tiger, which carried it via the Panama Canal to the Port of San Antonio, Chile arriving on the evening of 5th January. There the shipment was quickly disembarked, cleared through customs, and carried by truck on the final 560km leg of its journey to Cerro Pachón.
