Anglo-Australian Observatory
Encyclopedia
The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, is an optical/near-infrared astronomy observatory
with its headquarters in suburban Sydney
, Australia
. Originally funded jointly by the United Kingdom
and Australian governments, it is now managed wholly by Australia's Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, and operates the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope
(AAT) and 1.2 metre UK Schmidt Telescope
(UKST) at Siding Spring Observatory
, located near the town of Coonabarabran, Australia.
In addition to operating the two telescopes, AAO staff carry out astronomical research, as well as design and build innovative astronomical instrumentation for the AAT, UKST, and other telescopes including the European Southern Observatory
's Very Large Telescope
in Chile
, and the Japanese Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea
in Hawaii
.
UK involvement in the AAO ceased in June 2010, with the change of name and management arrangements effective from 1 July 2010.
optical observational astronomy in the UK was toiling due to a lack of modern infrastructure. There were no large telescopes in the southern hemisphere
despite some of the most intriguing astronomical objects (e.g. the Galactic Centre
and the Magellanic Clouds
) being best placed for study from these latitudes. In the 1950s Richard Woolley, Director of Mount Stromlo Observatory
from 1939–1956 and Astronomer Royal
from 1956–1971, suggested constructing a large telescope in Australia.
After a series of meetings between British and Australian scientists in the early 1960s to discuss the technical specifications and begin the search for a suitable site for the proposed telescope, a formal approach was made to the governments of both countries in July 1965. It was finally agreed in April 1967 that the building of a 150" telescope, the Anglo-Australian Telescope
(AAT), should proceed. The telescope was to be located on Siding Spring Mountain in the Warrumbungles
, which was owned by the Australian National University
(ANU) and the site of some of their existing infra-structure.
Later that year an interim body known as the Joint Policy Committee, and including prominent scientists Edward Bowen (Aus), Olin Eggen (Aus), Richard Woolley (UK) and Jim Hosie (UK) was formed to oversee the early running of a project office which was located in Canberra
. The project office finalised designs and specifications for the telescope, the mounting and the building and let contracts on a worldwide basis, exploiting the experience of those staff members who were involved in the development and construction of the Parkes radio telescope.
The Anglo-Australian Telescope Agreement was signed on the 25th September 1969 and came into effect on 22 February 1971. The Joint Policy Committee was replaced by the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board (AATB), an entity with full legal status under Australian law with responsibilities of overseeing the running of the telescope.
As construction of the AAT gathered pace, a heated debate ensued as to the details of the management structure which would control the telescope. Then Director of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, Olin Eggen and then Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, John Crawford
, claimed that the bi-national agreement did not provide for the creation of a separate observatory. They argued that the telescope should ultimately be under the control of the Director of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories and that additional staff for the new telescope should be provided by the ANU. However, fearing that they would be mere guests rather than equal partners in the AAT, British astronomers, with support from Australian state university astronomers, campaigned hard for a separate director and staff who were employed by and answerable only to the AATB. The matter was not settled until June 1973 when the Australian government endorsed the AATBs decision for an independent staff, marking the birth of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. The first Director, Joe Wampler, took up his post in September 1974. To date there have been five Directors.
Inc., USA and the 27.5 ton structure was cast from zero-expansion Cervit glass in April 1969. The blank was shipped to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England to be figured and polished by Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd.
The final product has a diameter of 3.9m and a focal length of 12.7m.
Construction of the building and dome, undertaken by the Australian companies Leighton Constructions
and Evans-Deakin Industries respectively, began in late-1970 and was completed by the end of 1972. The building was manufactured from concrete, stands 26m high and has seven floors housing offices, labs and a mirror aluminising chamber. The telescope stands on a concrete pier with is a separate foundation to the main building, to reduce the risk of vibrations. The double skinned dome is manufactured from both steel and aluminium and weighs 570 tonnes.
The telescope is mounted equatorially
, loosely following the design of the 4m Kitt Peak National Observatory
telescope. The mount was manufactured in Muroran
, Japan
by Mitsubishi Electric
. It was shipped to Australia in early 1973 before being assembled at Siding Spring Mountain in April of that year. The telescope drive system was also produced by Mitsubishi Electric and delivered at this time. It was one of the first to be controlled by computer, an Interdata Model 70, and provided new levels of pointing and tracking precision.
Assembly of the AAT was completed by 1974 and commissioning of the telescope began in April of that year. In total it took approximately 8 years to build at a cost of A$16 million. It was inaugurated by HRH Prince Charles on 16 October 1974 and went into general use in June 1975.
in astronomy for over 25 years. Instruments such as AAOmega and its predecessor 2dF, use optical fibres to feed the light of stars and galaxies from the focal plane of the telescope (i.e. where it forms an image of the night sky) into a spectrograph
where it is smeared out into its component colours for detailed subsequent analysis. The broad field-of-view accessed by the 2dF and AAOmega instruments (4 times the width of the moon) and their 400 optical fibres, makes it feasible to spectroscopically survey large numbers of objects distributed across expansive areas of sky in a reasonable time frame.
A number of major studies undertaken with the AAT have exploited these capabilities. The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
(2dFGRS) used the 2dF instrument to obtain spectra and redshift
s for ~250000 galaxies brighter than B~19.5 over ~7% of the southern sky in only ~270 nights. The 2dFGRS sample size was an order of magnitude greater than those of previous surveys, allowing a rigorous evaluation of cosmological parameters. For example, the survey has refined estimates of the mass density of the Universe, provided a determination of the fraction of baryon
ic (i.e. normal) matter in the Universe and set an upper limit on the total mass of neutrinos. In addition 2dFGRS yielded an independent estimate of the Hubble constant, which was in excellent agreement with value determined by the Hubble Space Telescope
Key Project
The ongoing WiggleZ project is using the AAT and AAOmega to measure the redshifts of ~200000 distant luminous blue star forming galaxies distributed over an area of ~5000 times the area of the moon. The primary goal of this study is to use an intrinsic feature in the distribution of galaxies as a “standard ruler” to relate distance to redshift and improve our knowledge of the nature of dark energy. This mysterious component of the Universe appears to be responsible for accelerating its rate of expansion.
Another current AAOmega based survey on the AAT, Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA), is in the process of obtaining optical spectroscopy for ~250000 galaxies in the Local Universe. The AAOmega data will be used in conjunction with observations from satellite observatories (e.g. Herschel Space Observatory
) and other telescopes around the world (e.g. the European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope, VISTA) to critically examine the predictions of the Cold Dark Matter standard cosmological model e.g. the relationship between the number density of dark matter halos and their masses and the relationship between the number density of galaxies and their masses as determined through studying their starlight.
The AAT also hosts an ongoing program to search for extrasolar planet
s, the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS). The AAPS exploits the high stability of the University College of London Echelle Spectrograph (UCLES) to obtain the few meters per second precision in measurements of the radial (line-of-sight) velocities of stars necessary to detect the reflex Doppler motion
induced by the presence of a planet. To date the AAPS has found more than 20 extrasolar planets, with masses ranging from ~10% to > 10 times that of Jupiter.
until 1988, when it was agreed that control would be handed over to the AAO.
The Schmidt has undertaken much notable work, including blue and red photographic surveys of the southern sky and the 6dF Galaxy Survey
. Its multi-object spectroscopic capability is currently being exploited to perform the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) survey.
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
with its headquarters in suburban Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Originally funded jointly by the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Australian governments, it is now managed wholly by Australia's Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, and operates the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope
Anglo-Australian Telescope
The Anglo-Australian Telescope is a 3.9 m equatorially mounted telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory and situated at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia at an altitude of a little over 1100 m...
(AAT) and 1.2 metre UK Schmidt Telescope
UK Schmidt Telescope
The 1.2 metre UK Schmidt Telescope is operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory , and located adjacent to the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia...
(UKST) at Siding Spring Observatory
Siding Spring Observatory
Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Australian National University , incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a collection of other telescopes owned by the Australian National...
, located near the town of Coonabarabran, Australia.
In addition to operating the two telescopes, AAO staff carry out astronomical research, as well as design and build innovative astronomical instrumentation for the AAT, UKST, and other telescopes including the European Southern Observatory
European Southern Observatory
The European Southern Observatory is an intergovernmental research organisation for astronomy, supported by fifteen countries...
's Very Large Telescope
Very Large Telescope
The Very Large Telescope is a telescope operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The VLT consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2m across, which are generally used separately but can be used together to...
in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, and the Japanese Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea Observatory
The Observatories at Mauna Kea, , are an independent collection of astronomical research facilities located on the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai'i, USA. The facilities are located in a special land use zone known as the "Astronomy Precinct," which is located in the Mauna Kea...
in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
.
UK involvement in the AAO ceased in June 2010, with the change of name and management arrangements effective from 1 July 2010.
History
In the years immediately after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
optical observational astronomy in the UK was toiling due to a lack of modern infrastructure. There were no large telescopes in the southern hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
despite some of the most intriguing astronomical objects (e.g. the Galactic Centre
Galactic Center
The Galactic Center is the rotational center of the Milky Way galaxy. It is located at a distance of 8.33±0.35 kpc from the Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius where the Milky Way appears brightest...
and the Magellanic Clouds
Magellanic Clouds
The two Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies visible in the southern hemisphere, which are members of our Local Group and are orbiting our Milky Way galaxy...
) being best placed for study from these latitudes. In the 1950s Richard Woolley, Director of Mount Stromlo Observatory
Mount Stromlo Observatory
Mount Stromlo Observatory located just outside of Canberra, Australia, is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University .-History:...
from 1939–1956 and Astronomer Royal
Astronomer Royal
Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834....
from 1956–1971, suggested constructing a large telescope in Australia.
After a series of meetings between British and Australian scientists in the early 1960s to discuss the technical specifications and begin the search for a suitable site for the proposed telescope, a formal approach was made to the governments of both countries in July 1965. It was finally agreed in April 1967 that the building of a 150" telescope, the Anglo-Australian Telescope
Anglo-Australian Telescope
The Anglo-Australian Telescope is a 3.9 m equatorially mounted telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory and situated at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia at an altitude of a little over 1100 m...
(AAT), should proceed. The telescope was to be located on Siding Spring Mountain in the Warrumbungles
Warrumbungles
The Warrumbungles is the name of a mountain range and National Park located in northern New South Wales, Australia. The nearest town to the Warrumbungles is Coonabarabran...
, which was owned by the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
(ANU) and the site of some of their existing infra-structure.
Later that year an interim body known as the Joint Policy Committee, and including prominent scientists Edward Bowen (Aus), Olin Eggen (Aus), Richard Woolley (UK) and Jim Hosie (UK) was formed to oversee the early running of a project office which was located in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
. The project office finalised designs and specifications for the telescope, the mounting and the building and let contracts on a worldwide basis, exploiting the experience of those staff members who were involved in the development and construction of the Parkes radio telescope.
The Anglo-Australian Telescope Agreement was signed on the 25th September 1969 and came into effect on 22 February 1971. The Joint Policy Committee was replaced by the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board (AATB), an entity with full legal status under Australian law with responsibilities of overseeing the running of the telescope.
As construction of the AAT gathered pace, a heated debate ensued as to the details of the management structure which would control the telescope. Then Director of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, Olin Eggen and then Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, John Crawford
John Crawford
John Crawford may refer to:* John Crawford , Australian economist* John Crawford , American actor* John Crawford , Canadian hockey player...
, claimed that the bi-national agreement did not provide for the creation of a separate observatory. They argued that the telescope should ultimately be under the control of the Director of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories and that additional staff for the new telescope should be provided by the ANU. However, fearing that they would be mere guests rather than equal partners in the AAT, British astronomers, with support from Australian state university astronomers, campaigned hard for a separate director and staff who were employed by and answerable only to the AATB. The matter was not settled until June 1973 when the Australian government endorsed the AATBs decision for an independent staff, marking the birth of the Anglo-Australian Observatory. The first Director, Joe Wampler, took up his post in September 1974. To date there have been five Directors.
Construction of the Anglo-Australian Telescope
In late-1967 the contract for the primary mirror blank was awarded to Owens-IllinoisOwens-Illinois
Owens-Illinois Inc. is a Fortune 500 company that specializes in container glass products. It is one of the world's leading manufacturers of packaging products, holding the position of largest manufacturer of glass containers in North America, South America, Asia-Pacific and Europe...
Inc., USA and the 27.5 ton structure was cast from zero-expansion Cervit glass in April 1969. The blank was shipped to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England to be figured and polished by Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd.
Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd.
Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co. Ltd. was a telescope manufacturer, more commonly known as Grubb Parsons based in Newcastle upon Tyne.-History:...
The final product has a diameter of 3.9m and a focal length of 12.7m.
Construction of the building and dome, undertaken by the Australian companies Leighton Constructions
Leighton Holdings
Leighton Holdings is Australia's largest project development and contracting group. It is active in the telecommunications, engineering and infrastructure, building and property, mining and resources, and environmental services industries...
and Evans-Deakin Industries respectively, began in late-1970 and was completed by the end of 1972. The building was manufactured from concrete, stands 26m high and has seven floors housing offices, labs and a mirror aluminising chamber. The telescope stands on a concrete pier with is a separate foundation to the main building, to reduce the risk of vibrations. The double skinned dome is manufactured from both steel and aluminium and weighs 570 tonnes.
The telescope is mounted equatorially
Equatorial mount
An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that follows the rotation of the sky by having one rotational axis parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras...
, loosely following the design of the 4m Kitt Peak National Observatory
Kitt Peak National Observatory
The Kitt Peak National Observatory is a United States astronomical observatory located on 2,096 m Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, southwest of Tucson...
telescope. The mount was manufactured in Muroran
Muroran, Hokkaido
is a city and port located in Iburi, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is the capital city of Iburi Subprefecture.As of 2008, the city has an estimated population of 96,724 and a density of 1,210 people per km². The total area is 80.65 km².- History :...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by Mitsubishi Electric
Mitsubishi Electric
is a multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group....
. It was shipped to Australia in early 1973 before being assembled at Siding Spring Mountain in April of that year. The telescope drive system was also produced by Mitsubishi Electric and delivered at this time. It was one of the first to be controlled by computer, an Interdata Model 70, and provided new levels of pointing and tracking precision.
Assembly of the AAT was completed by 1974 and commissioning of the telescope began in April of that year. In total it took approximately 8 years to build at a cost of A$16 million. It was inaugurated by HRH Prince Charles on 16 October 1974 and went into general use in June 1975.
Outline of work undertaken with the AAT
The AAO has undertaken pioneering work on the use of optical fibresOptical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
in astronomy for over 25 years. Instruments such as AAOmega and its predecessor 2dF, use optical fibres to feed the light of stars and galaxies from the focal plane of the telescope (i.e. where it forms an image of the night sky) into a spectrograph
Spectrograph
A spectrograph is an instrument that separates an incoming wave into a frequency spectrum. There are several kinds of machines referred to as spectrographs, depending on the precise nature of the waves...
where it is smeared out into its component colours for detailed subsequent analysis. The broad field-of-view accessed by the 2dF and AAOmega instruments (4 times the width of the moon) and their 400 optical fibres, makes it feasible to spectroscopically survey large numbers of objects distributed across expansive areas of sky in a reasonable time frame.
A number of major studies undertaken with the AAT have exploited these capabilities. The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
In astronomy, the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey , 2dF or 2dFGRS is a redshift survey conducted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory with the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope between 1997 and 11 April 2002. The data from this survey were made public on 30 June 2003...
(2dFGRS) used the 2dF instrument to obtain spectra and redshift
Redshift
In physics , redshift happens when light seen coming from an object is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum...
s for ~250000 galaxies brighter than B~19.5 over ~7% of the southern sky in only ~270 nights. The 2dFGRS sample size was an order of magnitude greater than those of previous surveys, allowing a rigorous evaluation of cosmological parameters. For example, the survey has refined estimates of the mass density of the Universe, provided a determination of the fraction of baryon
Baryon
A baryon is a composite particle made up of three quarks . Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which are the quark-based particles...
ic (i.e. normal) matter in the Universe and set an upper limit on the total mass of neutrinos. In addition 2dFGRS yielded an independent estimate of the Hubble constant, which was in excellent agreement with value determined by the Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
Key Project
The ongoing WiggleZ project is using the AAT and AAOmega to measure the redshifts of ~200000 distant luminous blue star forming galaxies distributed over an area of ~5000 times the area of the moon. The primary goal of this study is to use an intrinsic feature in the distribution of galaxies as a “standard ruler” to relate distance to redshift and improve our knowledge of the nature of dark energy. This mysterious component of the Universe appears to be responsible for accelerating its rate of expansion.
Another current AAOmega based survey on the AAT, Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA), is in the process of obtaining optical spectroscopy for ~250000 galaxies in the Local Universe. The AAOmega data will be used in conjunction with observations from satellite observatories (e.g. Herschel Space Observatory
Herschel Space Observatory
The Herschel Space Observatory is a European Space Agency space observatory sensitive to the far infrared and submillimetre wavebands. It is the largest space telescope ever launched, carrying a single mirror of in diameter....
) and other telescopes around the world (e.g. the European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope, VISTA) to critically examine the predictions of the Cold Dark Matter standard cosmological model e.g. the relationship between the number density of dark matter halos and their masses and the relationship between the number density of galaxies and their masses as determined through studying their starlight.
The AAT also hosts an ongoing program to search for extrasolar planet
Extrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
s, the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS). The AAPS exploits the high stability of the University College of London Echelle Spectrograph (UCLES) to obtain the few meters per second precision in measurements of the radial (line-of-sight) velocities of stars necessary to detect the reflex Doppler motion
Doppler effect
The Doppler effect , named after Austrian physicist Christian Doppler who proposed it in 1842 in Prague, is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the wave. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from...
induced by the presence of a planet. To date the AAPS has found more than 20 extrasolar planets, with masses ranging from ~10% to > 10 times that of Jupiter.
The Schmidt Telescope
The 1.2m Schmidt telescope was built to complement the AAT and officially began operations in August 1973. It was designed for survey astronomy, having an extremely large field-of-view which is more than 12 times the apparent diameter of the moon. The telescope was operated by the Schmidt Telescope Unit of the Royal Observatory, EdinburghRoyal Observatory, Edinburgh
The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council...
until 1988, when it was agreed that control would be handed over to the AAO.
The Schmidt has undertaken much notable work, including blue and red photographic surveys of the southern sky and the 6dF Galaxy Survey
6dF Galaxy Survey
The 6dF Galaxy Survey , 6dF or 6dFGS is a redshift survey conducted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory with the 1.2m UK Schmidt Telescope between 2001 and 2009. The data from this survey were made public on 31 March 2009. The survey has mapped the nearby universe over nearly half the sky...
. Its multi-object spectroscopic capability is currently being exploited to perform the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) survey.