November 10, 2005, Sutherland, Northern Cape, South Africa--South African President Thabo Mbeki is scheduled to inaugurate the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) today at the South African Astronomical Observatory.
"SALT was an initiative of South African astronomers that won support from the South African government, not simply because it was a leap forward in astronomical technology, but because of the host of spin-off benefits it could bring to the country", said project scientist David Buckley upon releasing SALT "first light" images in September. "Indeed the SALT project has become an iconic symbol for what can be achieved in Science and Technology in the new South Africa."
SALT is an international partnership involving 11 different partners from 6 countries on 4 continents - including Germany, Poland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA. Local engineers and scientists succeeded in building SALT on a rapid - for big telescope projects at least - 5 year timescale. And the cost of construction was kept to within the original budget of $20 million defined in 1998, even before the final designs were completed. According to Kobus Meiring, project engineer, "This is due in part to the fact much of the original design concept for SALT was modeled on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas, giving a useful starting point and allowing SALT's engineers to make creative use of the 'lessons learned' with the only previous telescope of this type."
SALT is the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, and equal to the largest in the world. Gathering more than 25 times as much light as any existing African telescope, SALT can detect objects as faint as a candle flame on the moon. These "first light" images were taken during the camera's first trial period of operation, which also achieved SALT's first significant scientific results and showed details as small as a 1 rand coin 2 km away.