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  2. Mid-Scale Observatories — Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
  3. Current Instruments
  4. SOAR Optical Imager (SOI)
  5. SOAR Optical Imager (SOI)

SOAR Optical Imager (SOI)

Read more about NOIRLab's instruments and other capabilities in the Capabilities brochure.

SOI HAS BEEN RETIRED - IT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.  The documentation here is for users who have past data from SOI, but you should not propose to use SOI.

The Goodman instrument offers imaging capabilities with very similar FOV and image scale as SOI, from the UV to 0.9 microns, with various Region of Interest (ROI) options, and a wide assortment of filters. All filters that were used on SOI can be used with Goodman.

 

Instrument Scientist: Sean Points
CTIO Instrument Support Scientists: Cesar Briceno, Sean Points
Brazilian Instrument Support Scientists: soar.suporte@lna.br

The SOAR Optical Imager (SOI) is a bent-Cassegrain mounted optical imager using a mini-mosaic of two E2V 2k x 4k CCDs to cover a 5.26 arcminute square field of view at a scale of 0.077"/pixel. It was designed, built, and integrated at SOAR by a NOIRLab/CTIO team lead by Drs. Alistair Walker and Hugo Schwarz.
Two views of the SOI mounted at one of the bent Cassegrain foci of the SOAR telescope. The smaller blue cylinder is the CCD mosaic dewar and is flanked by the two rectangular Leach controllers, the round black part is the cable wrap, and the large blue tube bolted onto the telescope is the main body of the instrument holding the linear ADC prisms, one of which can move over a distance of nearly one meter. The drawing shows the basic lay-out of the instrument in a cut-out view. From left to right the light encounters: ADC prisms, optics module, two filter slides, the shutter, and finally the CCD mosaic.

DOCUMENTATION FOR SOI USERS:

Last update: C. Briceño, Feb 17, 2022

Updated on May 15, 2024, 11:18 am