SALT - Southern African Large Telescope

SALT Key Performance Characteristics


  • Telescope location : Sutherland, Northern Cape, South Africa
  • Telescope elevation: 1798m above mean sea level
  • Site atmospheric seeing: EE(50) = 0.91' (median)
  • Telescope tilt angle: 37° from vertical
  • Telescope Field-of-Regard: annulus on the sky, with width +/- 6° about tilt angle
  • Declination range: -75° 22' to 10° 37'
  • Maximum science integration: declination dependent (see yellow line in Figure 1)
  • Primary mirror size: ~10m diameter
  • Primary mirror shape: spherical
  • Telescope image quality: EE(50) better than 0.6" without atmospheric seeing
  • Percentage of light reaching science instrument on-axis: see Figure 2 (includes all mirror transmissions and vignetting for pupil at best position)
  • Operational wavelengths: 320nm to 2500nm
  • Science Field-of-View: circle of diameter 8'
  • Guidance Field-of-View: circle of diameter 10' (can overlap science field of view)
  • Telescope operation: queue scheduling by resident operator and astronomer
  • Operational temperature range: -10°C to 25°C
  • Operational wind speed: 0 to 21m/s
  • Survival wind speed: 61m/s