33-726: Tankwa Karoo National Park is a national park in South Africa. The park lies about 70 km west of Sutherland and along the border of the Northern Cape and Western Cape in Succulent Karoo habitat; a biodiversity hotspot and one of the most arid regions of South Africa. Before the park's proclamation, the only protected area of Succulent Karoo was the 2 square kilometre patch of the Gamkaberg Nature Reserve . Succulent Karoo has, together with
66-660: A 1.65 x 1.65 degree field-of-view, sampled at 0.56"/pix. It was designed and manufactured in the Netherlands ( Radboud University & NOVA) and is run by a consortium of Radboud University, University of Cape Town, the NRF/SAAO, the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester and the University of Amsterdam. It is the optical eye of MeerKAT, and has as its main-purpose to twin with the MeerKAT radio array to achieve
99-482: A significant role in the town's economy and is a major driver of tourism to the area. The town also has a number of bars, restaurants and an amateur astronomy observatory that service the tourism sector. Sutherland has recently gained in popularity, with many Capetonians buying property in the town and many more visiting on weekends and vacations. Sutherland's arid climate and remote location 1,450 metres (4,760 ft) above sea level make its night skies among
132-689: A simultaneous optical-radio coverage of the Southern Skies. It is the prototype of the BlackGEM array, installed at ESO La Silla in Chile. The Yonsei Survey Telescopes for Astronomical Research ( YSTAR ), decommissioned in 2012, was used for the monitoring of variable stars and other transient events. YSTAR was a joint project between SAAO and the Yonsei University , Korea . The ATLAS asteroid impact early warning system, developed by
165-443: Is home to a large variety of birds (188 species – 2015 figure), such as the black-headed canary , Ludwig's bustard , and the black-eared sparrow-lark . Peak birding season is August to October. The park's bird list currently includes 187 bird species. Birds found in the park include: Sutherland, Northern Cape Sutherland is a town with about 2,841 inhabitants in the Northern Cape province of South Africa . It lies in
198-711: Is located. The SAAO has links worldwide for scientific and technological collaboration. Instrumental contributions from the South African Astronomical Observatory include the development of a spherical aberration corrector and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The Noon Gun on Cape Town's Signal Hill is fired remotely by a time signal from the Observatory. The history of the SAAO began when
231-511: Is owned and operated by Vanderbilt University and was based on the design of KELT-North, which was conceived and designed at the Ohio State University , Department of Astronomy. The KELT-South telescope will serve as a counterpart to its northern twin, surveying the southern sky for transiting planets over the next few years. Optical wide-field telescope, installed in 2017. It has a 60 cm (24 in) effective aperture, and
264-672: Is the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, with a hexagonal mirror array 11 meters across. SALT shares similarities with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas. The Southern African Large Telescope gathers twenty-five times as much light as any other existing African Telescope. With this larger mirror array, SALT can record distant stars , galaxies and quasars . The Wide Angle Search for Planets consists of two robotic telescopes ,
297-546: Is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa . The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics . The primary telescopes are located in Sutherland , which is 370 kilometres (230 mi) from Observatory, Cape Town , where the headquarters
330-542: Is the study of exoplanets using gravitational microlensing. Two telescopes forming part of Project Solaris is located at the Sutherland site. Solaris-1 and Solaris-2 are both 0.5m f/15 Ritchey–Chrétien telescope . The aims of Project Solaris is to detect circumbinary planets around eclipsing binary stars and to characterise these binaries to improve stellar models. SALT was inaugurated in November 2005. It
363-549: Is used to control the telescopes remotely. PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiments is a 1.8 metres (71 in) telescope located in Sutherland. PRIME achieved first light on October 8, 2022. Currently PRIME has a near-infrared camera located in its prime focus with a 1.29 square degree field of view. The telescope is a collaboration between Osaka University , University of Maryland , South African Astronomical Observatory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Astro-Biology Center . The project's primary science objective
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#1732772150522396-880: The Cape Floral Kingdom , been declared a biodiversity hotspot by Conservation International . It is bounded on the east by the Roggeveld Mountains , on the west by the Cederberg , to the north by the Kouebokkeveld Mountains and on the south by the scattered foothills of the Koedoesberge and Klein Roggeveld Mountains, and the Tankwa River. The park's headquarters are located at Roodewerf. Distances from
429-834: The Magellanic Clouds ;– A Thorough Study grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2000. Other studies the telescope participated in include: Three 1 metre (39 in) telescopes to form part of the LCOGT network were installed in early 2013. The MASTER-SAAO Telescope (obs. code: K95 ) is part of the Russian Mobile Astronomical System of Telescope-Robots . It saw first light on 21 December 2014. It consists of two paired 0.4-m telescopes. In April 2015 it discovered
462-653: The Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 1820, the first scientific institution in Africa. Construction of the main buildings was completed in 1829 at a cost of £ 30,000 (equivalent to £3.3 million in 2024 ). The post of His/Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope was awarded the Royal Medal on two occasions; the first to Thomas Maclear in 1869 for measurement of an arc of
495-470: The 1.9-m Radcliffe Telescope and transported it to Sutherland. The observatory operates from the campus of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope that was established in 1820 in the suburb of Observatory, Cape Town . The major observing facilities are, however, located near the town of Sutherland some 370 kilometres (230 mi) from Cape Town . Sutherland was chosen because of its reliably clear and dark nights, but to ensure long term viability of
528-645: The Atlantic Ocean being largely stopped by the Cederberg mountains. Other low areas receive little more, as the Roodewerf station (co-ordinates: 32°14′27.9″S 20°05′44.5″E / 32.241083°S 20.095694°E / -32.241083; 20.095694 ) with 180 mm of mean annual rainfall. In the hottest areas of the park, the mean maximum temperature in January is 38.9 °C, and in July
561-771: The Karoo site astronomy instruments, the South African Parliament passed the Astronomy Geographic Advantage Act in 2007. The act gives the Minister of Science and Technology the authority to protect areas, through regulations, that are of strategic national importance for astronomy and related scientific endeavours. This 0.5 metres (20 in) reflector was originally built for the Republic Observatory in 1967, but
594-689: The Sutherland site. This telescope participates in the PLANET network. The 1.9-m (74-inch) Radcliffe Telescope was commissioned for the Radcliffe Observatory in Pretoria where it was in use between 1948 and 1974. Following the closure of the Radcliffe Observatory it was moved to Sutherland where it became operational again in January 1976. Between 1951 and 2004 it was the largest telescope in South Africa. The telescope
627-452: The University of Hawaii and funded by NASA, consists of 4 telescopes; South Africa hosts ATLAS-Sutherland. In February 2023, the telescope observed the comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) . The GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam in co-operation with the National Research Foundation of South Africa constructed the SAGOS between 1998 and 2000. SAGOS consist of a 1 Hz permanent GPS station,
660-543: The farm Buffelsfontein near Molteno holds the official lowest temperature record in Continental South Africa, of −20.2 °C (−4 °F). The South African Prince Edward Islands have experienced significantly lower temperatures, however, these islands have sub-Antarctic, highland climates and are located well to the southeast of mainland South Africa. Snowfall in Sutherland is common in winter, And precipitation ranges from 170mm to 300mm mostly in
693-680: The first comet from South Africa in 35 years, C/2015 G2 (MASTER) . One of the two 1.20 metres (47 in) telescopes of the MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes Project is located at Sutherland. Its twin can be found at the McDonald Observatory in Texas. The MONET telescopes are Robotic telescope controllable via the Internet and was constructed by the University of Göttingen . Remote Telescope Markup Language
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#1732772150522726-517: The form of rain. The coldest temperature recorded in Sutherland was −16.4 °C (2.5 °F) on 12 July 2003, And the lowest Daytime temperature was recorded at -6 °C on 2 August 2012. Sutherland has a semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification BSk ). The climate record is sparse; the data below is drawn from the 2017-2020 records. Notable residents of Sutherland include: South African Astronomical Observatory The South African Astronomical Observatory ( SAAO )
759-684: The headquarters in a number of domes and a small museum that displays scientific instruments. The South African Astronomical Observatory is administered at present as a National Facility under management of the National Research Foundation (NRF), formerly the Foundation for Research Development (FRD). In 1974, when the Radcliffe Observatory in Pretoria closed, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) purchased
792-576: The mean minimum temperature ranges from about 5 to 7 °C. The park has started the reintroduction of game that used to be found naturally in the area. Research was done beforehand to ensure that introduced animals would survive on the overgrazed veld . The vegetation in the park falls within the Succulent Karoo biome and has been described as very sparse shrubland and dwarf shrubland. Several unique succulent genera occur here, such as Tanquana , Braunsia and Didymaotus . The park
825-498: The meridian at the Cape of Good Hope and the second to David Gill in 1903 for researches in solar and stellar parallax, and his energetic direction of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. The Republic Observatory , Johannesburg, was merged with the much older Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope in January 1972 to form the South African Astronomical Observatory. In 1974 the Radcliffe Observatory telescope
858-510: The nearest towns to the park's headquarters are: Ceres (180 km), Sutherland (120 km), Calvinia (110 km) and Middelpos (52 km). In 1998 Conrad Strauss sold 280 km of sheep farm to the South African National Parks. Tankwa's area has been increased from an initial 260 km to 1436 km. Some areas receive less than 100 mm of average annual precipitation, moisture-bearing clouds from
891-485: The one located at SAAO Sutherland and the other at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canaries . WASP-17b , the first exoplanet known to have a retrograde orbit was discovered in 2009 using this array. KELT-South ( Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope – South ) is a small robotic telescope that is designed to detect transiting extrasolar planets. The telescope
924-531: The war a number of engagements between British and Boer forces occurred in the town. In one such engagement a force of 250 Boer commandos attacked the local British garrison for 10 hours. The ruins of a fort can be found on the outskirts of town on the hill called Rebelskop. This was named after this engagement. Major economic activities include tourism and sheep farming. The area includes at least twelve registered B&B's, guest houses and guest farms. The nearby South African Astronomical Observatory also plays
957-525: The western Roggeveld Mountains in the Karoo . Sutherland was founded in 1855 as a church and market town to serve the area's sheep farmers. By 1872 the town had a population of 138 registered citizens living in 19 houses. The large Dutch Reformed church in the centre of Sutherland was built in 1899. During the Anglo Boer War the church was used as a fort by garrisoned British soldiers. During
990-530: The world's clearest and darkest. The telescopes of the South African Astronomical Observatory are nearby at 32°22′46″S 20°48′38.5″E / 32.37944°S 20.810694°E / -32.37944; 20.810694 ( SAAO ) . These include the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. Sutherland is the coldest town in South Africa, although
1023-702: Was manufactured by Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co . This 29.5 inches (75 cm) telescope was originally called the Automatic Photometric Telescope, but has been renamed the Alan Cousins Telescope in honour of Alan William James Cousins . One of six telescopes in the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network . The IRSF is a 140 centimetres (55 in) reflector fitted with a 3 colour Infrared Imager. Originally built as part of
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1056-538: Was moved to the Sutherland site in 1972. No longer in use. The 20" telescope was replaced with the Meerlicht telescope. The 20" telescope was relocated to the University of Freestate Boyden observatory and commissioned in ~2019 A 0.75 metres (30 in) Grubb Parsons reflector. This 40 inches (1.0 m) telescope was originally located at SAAO Head office in Observatory, Cape Town , but has since moved to
1089-629: Was purchased by the CSIR and moved to Sutherland, where it recommenced work in 1976. SAAO was established in January 1972, as a result of a joint agreement by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa and Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of United Kingdom. The headquarters are located on the grounds of the old Royal Observatory where the main building, offices, national library for astronomy and computer facilities are housed. Historic telescopes are also found at
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