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The new SONG Spectrograph has arrived in Australia

On the 4th of March 2020 the new SONG spectrograph arrived at the Mt. Kent Observatory in Queensland, Australia. The spectrograph was build in the basement at IFA and will be used to analyse the light from stars collected through two telescopes at the observatory.

Hasse Stræde Hansen in front of the telescope he has developed control software for during his master thesis.
Assembling the spectrograph in Australia. From left: Mads Fredslund Andersen, Frank Grundahl and Hasse Stræde Hansen

Two weeks ago master student Hasse Stræde Hansen travelled together with Frank Grundahl and Mads Fredslund Andersen to Australia to set up the new SONG observatory. As part of his master thesis Hasse has developed software to control the new telescopes which will be used at the Mt. Kent Observatory. To set up his code and test it he travelled along to Australia to run his software on the real telescopes.

Since the spectrograph arrived at the observatory Frank has been busy installing the vital components which during transport has been securely packed. Afterwards the individual optical elements will need to be correctly adjusted to make the spectrograph run in the most optimum way. Meanwhile Mads installs all other hardware components and guides Hasse in testing the telescopes.

See more and follow the development here: https://www.facebook.com/SONGtelescope/