SAM = SOAR Adaptive Module

SAM document navigator

Improved angular resolution at optical and infrared wavelengths

Uniform and selective compensation of low-altitude turbulence

A relatively wide field (3 arcminutes)

Image quality improved by a factor of 2 to 5

Integrated CCD Imager

Correction achieved using a low-altitude Rayleigh laser guide star and two (or one) tip-tilt guide stars (R<18)

May 15, 2012. On the engineering night of May 8/9 SAM reached a resolutin of 0.26" in the I band, showing substantial gain over open-loop data. The image fragments (click to enlarge) show globular cluster NGC 6496.

Filter I: exposure 120c, resolution 0.26" (closed-loop) and 0.51" (open loop).

Filter V: exposure 300c, resolution 0.43" (closed-loop) and 0.66" (open loop).

March 16, 2012. On the engineering night of March 6/7 the SAM AO loop worked well (we removed the LLT enclosure and reduced the internal seeing that enlarged the LGS). The best achieved resolution is 0.30arcsec in the I filter. Read more here...

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