http://www.skyandtelescope.com.au 19And tomorrow
TheAAO’sinstrumentationprogram
will continue unabated under its new
management. Instruments currently
in development for the AAT include
HECTOR (a considerably more powerful
versionofSAMI)andVeloce,ahighly-
stable spectrograph for precision
velocity measurements of stars,
facilitating studies of planets circling
otherstars—amongotherthings.
Projects for other observatories
includeAESOP,a2,400-fibretilting-
spinepositionerforESO’s4-mVISTA
telescope, and the Gemini High-
Resolution Optical SpecTrograph
(GHOST), which has been developed
forthe8-mGeminiSouthtelescope
inacollaborationbetweenAAO,the
Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics in
Canada,andtheANU.
More fundamental instrumentation
researchisalsobeingcarried
out,particularlyinthefieldof
astrophotonics. Over the next few years,
novel waveguide devices are expected
toradicallychangethewayinwhich
astronomical instruments are built, and
add wholly new capabilities.
Meanwhile, not to be outdone by its
largersibling,theUKSTbegananewrole as a dedicated spectroscopic survey
telescopein2001usingaroboticfibre
instrument called 6dF — for 6-degree
Field.Itsfirstmajorprojectwasthe6dF
Galaxy Survey (6dFGS), measuring the
redshiftsof150,000galaxies,completed
in2005.Thetelescopewentontocarry
out the RAVE survey (for RAdial Velocity
Experiment), a multi-national project
to measure the velocities and physical
parameters of half a million stars. RAVE
wascompletedin2013,anditsscientific
legacy is still being exploited.
But after a major refurbishment,
theUKSTisnowembarkingontwo
new surveys. They are Taipan (two
million galaxies for cosmological
and extragalactic studies, which will
complementamajorprojectonthe
ASKAPradiotelescopearray)and
FunnelWeb(threemillionstarsto
generate an entirely new spectroscopic
catalogue).
Both use a novel fibre-positioner
recently commissioned on the UKST.
Each of the 150 fibres is now positioned
by its own micro-robot, rather than
withapick-placemachinesuchasthat
usedby2dFor6dF.Allthefibrescan
be moved simultaneously, reducing
reconfiguration time to a few minutes.DECADES OF DISCOVERY
Over the years, the AAO’s telescopes
and scientists have been involved
in many major astronomical
breakthroughs:- detected clouds near the surface
of the planet Venus through its very
dense atmosphere - detected the irst optical counterpart
of a supernova remnant in the
Southern Hemisphere - observed the spectacular explosion
of the Supernova 1987A, the
brightest supernova since the
invention of the telescope four
centuries earlier - discovered extremely small, ‘ultra-
compact’ dwarf galaxies - weighed the Milky Way galaxy
- made the irst detection of an
isolated brown dwarf star in our
Galaxy - measured the Hubble Constant (the
rate of expansion of the Universe)
with unprecedented accuracy - carried out the highest-precision
searchforexoplanetsinthe
Southern Hemisphere, identifying
more than 40 planets around other
stars - discovered streams of stars in our
Galaxy that are the remnants of
dwarfgalaxiesabsorbedintoour
own - conirmed the link between the
Cosmic Microwave Background
Radiation (the ‘lash’ of the Big Bang)
and today’s distribution of galaxies.
S PORTRAIT VIEW The deinitive image of the 1.2-metre UK Schmidt Telescope (essentially a
large astronomical camera) in the 6dF era, with the robot room on the left and the spectrograph
enclosure on the right.This ‘Starbugs’ technology has been
developed by AAO as a demonstrator
for MANIFEST, the proposed ‘Many
Instrument Fibre System’ for the 24.5-m
Giant Magellan Telescope.
Not quite an instrumentation
project, but vitally important for
archiving and disseminating survey
data, is AAO’s Data Central. This
new venture, designed specifically
to meet the needs of the Australian
astronomical community, was funded
by DIIS to provide a large-scale data
BEN WRIGLEY archive. Data Central is rapidly