SALT launching on 11 November

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) will officially be launched on Thursday 10th November. SALT is the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere and equal in size the the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere.

Comments

SALT?

[I_M_Noman]

Damn, we really are running out of acronyms. (To those of us over a certain age, SALT stands for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.)

Re:Artifacts on First Light images

[Mr_Dyqik]

It's still to be fully calibrated. That's what first light literally means, the first astronomical light to pass through the instrument, so that you can start the shakedown tests and calibrations.

Re:They're bidding on SKA already?

[dascandy]

Could you figure out that SKA is INTERNATIONAL?

For those not understanding the word: International means that more than one nation is working on it. This means for instance that ESA (European Space Agency), those guys from the other side of the planet that fly with Ariadne rockets instead of Space Shuttles (talk about lack of imagination), can help fund it.

Example: I'm not in America, nor in the USA (explicified for people with dissociative disabilities, such as not recognising the USA as part of America but as equivalent). I work on the SKA.

Launches & SALT

[Red Flayer]

" The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) will officially be launched on Thursday 10th November"

I thought that the whole purpose of the SALT treaties were to prevent launches.

Not the largest telescope by a long shot.

[CanSpice]

Pedantically speaking, SALT isn't the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere. There are plenty larger -- for example, the Parkes Observatory in Australia is 64 meters across. It doesn't match the size of the largest telescope in the northern hemisphere, either. To do so it would have to be as large as Arecibo, 305 meters across.