The SOAR optical imager: status and first results

Hugo E. Schwarz; Michael C. Ashe; Maxime Boccas; Marco Bonati; Francisco Delgado; Ramon Gavez; Manuel Martinez; Patricio Schurter; Ricardo Schmidt; Roberto Tighe; Alistair R. Walker

doi:10.1117/12.553185

30 September 2004 The SOAR optical imager: status and first results

Hugo E. Schwarz, Michael C. Ashe, Maxime Boccas, Marco Bonati, Francisco Delgado, Ramon Gavez, Manuel Martinez, Patricio Schurter, Ricardo Schmidt, Roberto Tighe, Alistair R. Walker

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.553185
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

We briefly describe the SOAR Optical Imager (SOI), the first light instrument for the 4.1m SOuthern Astronomical Research (SOAR) telescope now being commissioned on Cerro Pachón in the mountains of northern Chile. The SOI has a mini-mosaic of 2 2kx4k CCDs at its focal plane, a focal reducer camera, two filter cartridges, and a linear ADC. The instrument was designed to produce precision photometry and to fully exploit the expected superb image quality of the SOAR telescope over a 5.5x5.5 arcmin² field with high throughput down to the atmospheric cut-off, and close reproduction of photometric pass-bands throughout 310-1050 nm. During early engineering runs in April 2004, we used the SOI to take images as part of the test program for the actively controlled primary mirror of the SOAR telescope, one of which we show in this paper. Taken just three months after the arrival of the optics in Chile, we show that the stellar images have the same diameter of 0.74" as the simultaneously measured seeing disk at the time of observation. We call our image "Engineering 1^st Light" and in the near future expect to be able to produce images with diameters down to 0.3" in the R band over a 5.5' field during about 20% of the observing time, using the tip-tilt adaptive corrector we are implementing.

Citation Download Citation

Hugo E. Schwarz, Michael C. Ashe, Maxime Boccas, Marco Bonati, Francisco Delgado, Ramon Gavez, Manuel Martinez, Patricio Schurter, Ricardo Schmidt, Roberto Tighe, and Alistair R. Walker "The SOAR optical imager: status and first results", Proc. SPIE 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy, (30 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.553185

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