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SAM = SOAR Adaptive Module |
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| News Archive |
| January 24, 2013. The paper based on SAM LGS data has been submitted to the Astronomical Journal. Title: SOAR adaptive optics observations of the globular cluster NGC 6496 Authors: Luciano Fraga, Andrea Kunder, Andrei Tokovinin |
| January 18, 2013. Science verification of SAM starts this semester, 2013A. The deadline for the proposals is March 15, 2013. See the Call for Proposals |
| 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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| December 7, 2011. After fixing the LLT optics and other LLT improvements, the SAM laser is back on sky. The picture shows radial profile of un-gated LGS, FWHM 1.4arcsec. Improved LGS image quality allows us to see "rays" produced by turbulence. Images on the right show those "rays" with pedestal subtracted and their computer simulation.  |
| April 16, 2011. The loop was closed on the laser guide star on April 15. Next night, the improvement of the image quality in closed-loop was documented by images of bright stars. Side-by-side comparison of PSFs in the green and red are shown in the image, with FWHM indicated.  |
| January 27, 2011. SOAR dome struck by laser!  |
January 7, 2011. "The laser box has been tested and aligned with the SOAR truss simulator,
on a Gemini lab. Alignment was successful, and very useful data was retrieved, along with a mounting procedure." (PS)
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September 8, 2010. The first half of this video [3.6MB]
shows a SAM internal star-simulating image of roughly 2/3rds of an Arcsecond in 355nm uv light. It is imaged
through phase plate 1 of TURSIM (r0 ~14 to 20cm @ 500nm) rotating at 30% speed with static aberrations
present. A very sudden transition is clearly seen when the WFS-DM correction loop is closed taking into account
the static aberrations offsets. The rest of the second half of the video shows the system correcting the
disturbances induced by TURSIM.
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December 23, 2009.
The SAM Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector is being commisioned. Watch this
video to see the dispersion going
from ZD=70[deg] to ZD=0[deg]
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October 9, 2009. SAM was removed from the telescope on October 4, 2009 and returned back to
La Serena, for integration of the remaining components. During the two test runs in August-October, good compensation quality was
achieved when the seeing conditions were normal and sky was clear. Long-exposure images of
close visual binaries reach a resolution around 0.1 arcsec in the I-band.
See also a direct image of a spectacular close triple I385 (HIP 85216) with two components at 0.39 and 0.26 arcsec obtained
on October 2 in the I-band.
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August 10, 2009. The SOAR Adaptive Module, SAM, has been installed at the telescope on August 5, 2009.
Next evening, August 6, the AO loop was closed on a bright star briefly seen between the clouds. See
pictures here
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July 21, 2008. The SOAR Adaptive Module, SAM, is coming together in the
optics lab. Here optical engineer Roberto Tighe (right), and software engineer Rolando Cantarutti
test the realtime adaptive software with all of the final opto-mechanical components placed in the
SAM module. Meanwhile, work proceeds in parallel on: completion of control electronics, cabling of
the module, design of the laser guide star system (for the second phase), and design of the detector
mount and dewar for the SAMI imager.
The instrument is currently scheduled to be commissioned on the telescope in the Natural Guide Star
(NGS) mode in mid-2009. The laser system is scheduled for commissioning a year later.
See other SAM pictures |
January 3, 2008. This is the status of the SAM bench being built in the shop. The front
plate is missing in the picture, but it is 80% fabricated. The side plate is being built now.
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March 5, 2007. A new SDN is available!! SDN-8307 on Tilt Error Signals has
been uploaded. (PDF).
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November 23, 2006. A new SDN is available!! SDN-3207 on NGS Wavefront Design.
(PDF)
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November 17, 2006. A new version of the SAM Optical Alignment has been uploaded.
Team members comments are welcome! (PDF)
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October 31, 2006. The mechanical design of the SAM bench is nearly finished.
The mock-up bench is used to trace the cabling and to check access for alignment [click to enlarge].
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March 2, 2005. Loop closed with real DM, CCD-39 and software in the lab!
More details here: 
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