Science Program Guidelines

SALT's design is ideally suited to observational programmes where the following criteria apply:

• Astronomical targets are uniformly distributed on the sky.
• Astronomical targets have sky surface densities of a few per square degrees OR are clustered on a scale of a few arc minutes:
• The former because the telescope can access a 12 degree x 12 degree "window of regard" by moving just the tracker and without rotating the structure in azimuth. The latter figure because of the 8 arcminute diameter field of view of the telescope.
• Time variability studies on time scales of less than a few hours, or greater than a day.
• A maximum continuous observation window varying from ~50 minutes to 3 hours, depending on the position of the object.
• This figure is determined by the time an object takes to cross the window of regard.
• High spatial resolution (sub-arcsec) not required.
• Because the telescope resolution is defined to be ~0.6 arcseconds.
• High accuracy absolute photometry not required.
• The time-varying pupil geometry makes photometry difficult, but the acquisition and imaging camera (SALTICAM) will be able to conduct differential photometry.
• Spectroscopy from 0.32 to 2.5 microns delivers astrophysical information most competitively.
  • Efficient time resolved spectroscopy (and spectropolarimetry) in the visible region (0.32-0.90 microns) will be tackled by the PFIS. It is being designed with the plan to upgrade the instrument to be capable of near infrared observations (to ~1.7 microns).
    

SALT will be operated almost entirely as a queue-scheduled telescope, where the observing schedule is defined well in advance of the observations. This achieves an efficient use of telescope time, where a number of different science programmes are likely to be carried out in any one night.

Observations will be carried out by dedicated SALT Astronomers on behalf of those proposing the observations (called Principal Investigators).

Key Science Programs