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.

(Credit: Andrei Tokovinin/CTIO)