Small town in South Africa famous for brutal winters and Boer War now hosts the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere
Sutherland in the Northern Cape is home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest in the southern hemisphere and the centre of the continent’s astronomy research.
The telescope takes advantage of the town’s remoteness, where there is almost no light pollution, to observe objects in space a billion times fainter than what the naked eye can see.
About 400 km from Cape Town, Sutherland was founded in 1855, with its church and market serving local Karoo sheep farmers. It was named after the church’s rector, Reverend Henry Sutherland.
By 1872, the town had 138 residents living in 19 houses, with a second Dutch Reformed Church built in the town’s centre in 1899.
This church was used as a fort by British soldiers during the Second Anglo-Boer War, with several skirmishes between British and Boer forces taking place in Sutherland.
On the outskirts of the town, visitors can still see the remnants of Fort Steenbok on Rebelskop, named for a division of 250 Boer commandos that laid siege to the town’s occupying British forces for 10 hours.
The Boer War significantly influenced the town, with markers like grave sites and ruins still lingering across the homes and the surrounding outskirts of Sutherland.
Eventually, the Cape Dutch-style homes would transform into the Victorian style as the Victorian Era came and went. Today, the bitterly cold winters and the stars in the night sky are its defining features.
In modern times, Sutherland may seem like an odd place for South Africans. The closest Checkers is in Ceres, over 160 km away by road across the sparse Karoo.
It has a small OK Grocer and OK Liquor outlet on the main street. There are also a few businesses operated by local residents, such as Sutherland Ko-Op.
The town is powered by a single Eskom substation. There is a school and a hospital, and Google Maps lists restaurants like the Boorgat Restaurant and The Blue Moon.
Boorgat focuses on a diner-style menu of burgers, schnitzels, and chips, while The Blue Moon serves traditional Afrikaans cuisine.
The town’s economy is driven by several guest houses, all marketed towards the major tourism attraction with names like “SpaceKaroo” and “Sterland B&B.”
A number of telescopes can be seen sticking out of the large koppie just outside town, and the Sutherland Planetarium is located in the town’s centre.
The most important large telescope in the southern hemisphere
SALT, located about 15 minutes from the town’s centre, is a 78-square-meter optical telescope with a 9.2-meter aperture. It is designed mainly for spectroscopy, the study of light.
Since elements in the universe like Hydrogen and Helium emit light at specific wavelengths, astronomers can use these wavelengths to paint a picture of objects enormous distances away.
The telescope has instruments such as the Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS), which can capture light from a single star on the other side of the galaxy and convert it into a wealth of data for study.
SALT is the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and is crucial for astronomy, as it enables light imaging of celestial objects that northern hemisphere telescopes cannot reach.
It is funded by a consortium of international partners, including South Africa, the United States, Poland, India, and the United Kingdom, and contributes to scientific research in these countries.
South Africa contributed a third of the total R595 million that was invested to finance SALT for its first 10 years of operations. The construction alone cost the partners over R300 million.
The instruments cost R99.3 million, while R166 million went into the first decade’s operations. Despite the costs, it was significantly cheaper than similar telescopes in Europe or the United States.
Full scientific operations began in 2011. In November 2025, Salt celebrated its 20-year anniversary. It was inaugurated in 2005, shortly after the telescope first saw light from the primary mirror.
Since operations began, SALT has witnessed, and its scientists have documented several important celestial events, including some for the first time in human history.
In 2016, astronomers used the telescope to detect a white dwarf pulsar for the first time, changing how researchers understood neutron stars and space radiation.
Earlier that year, SALT helped discover ASASSN-15lh, the largest and most luminous supernova to have ever been seen. At its peak, the supernova was 570 billion times brighter than the Sun.
“It is what we wanted for South Africa and for Africa,” said Naledi Pandor, then-Minister of Science and Technology.
“Not to stay at the margins but actually at the centre and beginning to do world-class quality work.”
The Southern African Large Telescope
The town with the coldest winters in South Africa
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