SAAO SALT Telescope
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. It has a hexagonal primary mirror array 11 metres across, comprising 91 individual 1.2m hexagonal mirrors. Although very similar to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas, SALT has a redesigned optical system resulting in a larger field of view and effective collecting area. It can detect the light from faint or distant objects in the Universe, a billion times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye - as faint as a candle flame would appear at the distance of the moon. The telescope and instruments are designed to operate from the near ultraviolet to the near infrared (320 to 1700 nm), and offer some unique or rare capabilities on a telescope of this size.