05 Feb Mirror alignment

Posted at 13:01h in Fun Facts by

SALT has 91 mirrors that work together as ‘one’ 10 metre diameter mirror. Every evening ‘mirror alignments’ need to be done to make sure that all the segments create a uniform spherical surface. The mirror alignment is done using an instrument located in the “Center of Curvature Alignment System” (CCAS) tower. The structure and dome are rotated to face the tower and a laser shines down which indicates which segments need to be moved so that they are all perfectly aligned with their neighbours.