On this page you will find details of new equipment, and of improvements and upgrades to the telescopes and instrumentation.  If you are coming to observe, or are considering submitting an application for telescope time, please check this page for the latest developments.

The pointing model for the 1.0-m telescope was updated in January 2012.  It is no longer necessary to apply different pointing zeropoints for different parts of the sky.

During the engineering week in October 2011 on the 1.9-m, the damaged diffraction gratings for the Cassegrain spectrograph were replaced.  Three new gratings were mounted and tested, replacing Gratings 4, 6 and 8.  The gratings are direct replacements, and the original names have been retained (e.g. the replacement for grating 4 is still called grating 4).  Wavelength ranges and resolutions can be found on this page.  The replacement for grating 5 is awaiting a new cell, and is currently unavailable.

Problems with the pointing of the 1.9-m telescope experienced over the past few months have been solved.  The pointing model was substantially improved during engineering time in October 2011.  The pointing is now accurate to within the 3x4 arcmin acquisition field of view.

The Sutherland High-speed Optical Camera (SHOC) is being commissioned on the 1.9-m, 1.0-m and 0.75-m telescopes.  You can follow its progress on this page.

In November 2011, a new pick-off mirror to direct light to the avalanche photodiode was installed on a precision stage on the bench-mounted GIRAFFE echelle spectrograph.  This has increased the APD counts by a factor of seven, thus improving the positioning of a star on the fibre.  (N.B. This has not directly improved the throughput to science camera.  Further upgrades are in the pipeline...)

In April 2011, the RA drive of the 0.75-m was repaired.  The variable tracking rate experienced by observers prior to this is now solved.