FACT SHEET - SOAR TELESCOPE

• The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope is a 4.1-meter telescope designed to produce the best quality images of any observatory in its class in the world.
• The SOAR Telescope is located nearly 9,000 feet above sea level on Cerro Pachón, at the western edge of the Andes Mountains in Chile. This remote peak, one of the best observing sites in the world, provides clear, dry air which minimizes image distortion and enhances infrared observations.
• The project is funded by a partnership between Michigan State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatories, and the country of Brazil. The nation of Chile is a de facto partner.
• Total cost of the project is $43 million, including $32 million for initial construction and 18 years of operations costs. MSU provided $6 million of the construction cost. In return, MSU astronomers will have 12 percent of the available observing time per year, or approximately 40 nights.
• MSU astronomers will use the SOAR Telescope to study dark energy (supernovae and galaxy clusters), dark matter (evolution of structures, galaxies and galaxy clusters) and chemical evolution (stellar processes, elemental abundances in ancient stars, and evolution of stellar populations).
• The SOAR Telescope simultaneously operates multiple instruments to increase efficiency and provide astronomers a suite of tools to enhance observations. SOAR's instruments include:
  • The Goodman Spectrograph for visible wavelength spectroscopy
  • The Optical Bench Spectrometer for integrated field unit spectroscopy
  • The SOAR Optical Imager
  • The Phoenix Infrared Echelle Spectrograph
  • The Ohio State Infrared Imaging Spectrograph
  • The Spartan Infrared Camera
• The Spartan Infrared Camera was designed and built at MSU. It will give astronomers the ability to view stars, galaxies and other objects whose images are much harder to see at visible wavelengths due to absorption by interstellar dust or because the light of distant objects is red-shifted to infrared wavelengths.
• The telescope's primary mirror is 4.1 meters in diameter and 10 centimeters thick. The mirror is supported by 120 electromechanical force feedback actuators. The optical train also included light-weight glass secondary and tertiary mirrors, and a fast tip-tilt gimbal for the tertiary mirror for first-order wavefront corrections at 50 Hertz.
• A remote observing room, located in MSU's Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building, will allow astronomers and students to see the images captured by the SOAR Telescope.
• The room has two high-resolution projectors displaying a view of the SOAR control panels that is 12 feet wide by 5 feet high. This display will include images captured by the SOAR instruments, and views of the Southern Hemisphere night sky from Cerro Pachón, allowing visitors to easily “look over the shoulders” of the working astronomers.