SALT - Southern African Large Telescope

Subsystems


SALT comprises of the following major subsystems which controlled by a network of computers:

  • Facility - comprising the telescope building, the utility buildings and the CCAS tower

  • Dome - the "roof" of the telescope building which also has a shutter which is opened during observations

  • Telescope structure - a steel structure which rotates on the azimuth pier, supporting the primary mirror and the tracker.

  • Primary mirror - 91 hexagonal segments which reflect the light to the tracker payload

  • Tracker - a six-degrees-of-freedom robot at the top of the structure which positions the tracker payload so that the focussed starlight enters it.

  • Telescope control system - comprising a group of computers that provide the the man-machine interface to the telescope and co-ordinate the operation of all the subsystems.

  • Science instruments