Australian Astronomical Observatory

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Australian Astronomical Observatory
Anglo-Australian Telescope dome.JPG
Alternative namesAAO OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Location North Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales, AUS
Coordinates 33°47′46″S151°08′42″E / 33.79621012°S 151.14511752°E / -33.79621012; 151.14511752
Altitude1,164 m (3,819 ft) OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Website www.aao.gov.au OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Telescopes
Australia relief map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Location of Australian Astronomical Observatory
[ edit on Wikidata]

The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, was an optical and near-infrared astronomy observatory with its headquarters in North Ryde in suburban Sydney, Australia. Originally funded jointly by the United Kingdom and Australian governments, it was managed wholly by Australia's Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. [1] [2] The AAO operated 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.

Contents

In addition to operating the two telescopes, AAO staff carried out astronomical research, and designed and built astronomical instrumentation for the AAT, UKST, and other telescopes including the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'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. [3]

History

The Australian Astronomical Observatory in 2008 (then called the "Anglo-Australian Observatory"). The staff tea room is in the lower left corner and the workshop to the right. The kangaroos in the foreground are a common sight at dusk. Anglo-Australian Observatory.JPG
The Australian Astronomical Observatory in 2008 (then called the "Anglo-Australian Observatory"). The staff tea room is in the lower left corner and the workshop to the right. The kangaroos in the foreground are a common sight at dusk.

In the years immediately after World War II 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 to 1956 and Astronomer Royal from 1956 to 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 infrastructure.

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 25 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[ when? ] 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-Illinois, 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 Grubb Parsons 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 Contractors [4] 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 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 eight 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. [5]

Research with the AAT

The AAO has made use of optical fibres in astronomy for over 25 years. [6] Instruments such as AAOmega, and its predecessor 2dF, use optical fibres to feed the light of stars and galaxies from the telescope into a spectrograph where it is dispersed 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. [7]

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 redshifts 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 baryonic matter in the Universe and set an upper limit on the total mass of neutrinos. [8] 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. [8]

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. [9] 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. [10]

Another 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.[ when? ] The AAOmega data will be used in conjunction with observations from satellite observatories such as the Herschel Space Observatory, and other telescopes around the world, to examine the predictions of the Cold Dark Matter standard cosmological model, like 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. [11]

The AAT also hosts a program to search for extrasolar planets, the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS). The AAPS exploits the high stability of the University College London Echelle Spectrograph (UCLES) to obtain the few metres per second precision in measurements of the line-of-sight velocities of stars necessary to detect the reflex Doppler motion induced by the presence of a planet. The AAPS has found more than 20 extrasolar planets, with masses ranging from ~10% to > 10 times that of Jupiter. [12]

The Schmidt Telescope

The 1.2-metre UK 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, Edinburgh until 1988, when it was agreed that control would be handed over to the AAO.

The Schmidt has undertaken work including blue and red photographic surveys of the southern sky and the 6dF Galaxy Survey. [13] Its multi-object spectroscopic capability is currently being exploited to perform the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) survey. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglo-Australian Telescope</span> Australian Astronomical Observatory telescope

The Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) is a 3.9-metre equatorially mounted telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory and situated at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, at an altitude of a little over 1,100 m. In 2009, the telescope was ranked as having the fifth-highest-impact of the world's optical telescopes. In 2001–2003, it was considered the most scientifically productive 4-metre-class optical telescope in the world based on scientific publications using data from the telescope.

The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of several photographic astronomical surveys of the night sky, produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1983 and 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siding Spring Observatory</span> Astronomic observatory in New South Wales, Australia

Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (ANU), incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a collection of other telescopes owned by the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, and other institutions. The observatory is situated 1,165 metres (3,822 ft) above sea level in the Warrumbungle National Park on Mount Woorat, also known as Siding Spring Mountain. Siding Spring Observatory is owned by the Australian National University (ANU) and is part of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories research school.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Stromlo Observatory</span> Astronomical observatory of the Australian National University in Canberra

Mount Stromlo Observatory located just outside Canberra, Australia, is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU). Australia's oldest telescope and several others at the observatory were destroyed by bushfire in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey</span>

In astronomy, the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, 2dF or 2dFGRS is a redshift survey conducted by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) 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. The survey determined the large-scale structure in two large slices of the Universe to a depth of around 2.5 billion light years. It was the world's largest redshift survey between 1998 and 2003. Matthew Colless, Richard Ellis, Steve Maddox and John Peacock were in charge of the project. Team members Shaun Cole and John Peacock were awarded a share of the 2014 Shaw Prize in astronomy for results from the 2dFGRS.

The UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) is a 1.24 metre Schmidt telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory ; it is located adjacent to the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia. It is very similar to the Samuel Oschin telescope in California. The telescope can detect objects down to magnitude 21 after an hour of exposure on photographic plates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astronomical survey</span> General map or image of a region of the sky with no specific observational target

An astronomical survey is a general map or image of a region of the sky that lacks a specific observational target. Alternatively, an astronomical survey may comprise a set of images, spectra, or other observations of objects that share a common type or feature. Surveys are often restricted to one band of the electromagnetic spectrum due to instrumental limitations, although multiwavelength surveys can be made by using multiple detectors, each sensitive to a different bandwidth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SkyMapper</span>

SkyMapper is a fully automated 1.35 m (4.4 ft) wide-angle optical telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the telescopes of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University (ANU). The telescope has a compact modified Cassegrain design with a large 0.69 m secondary mirror, which gives it a very wide field of view: its single, dedicated instrument, a 268-million pixel imaging camera, can photograph 5.7 square degrees of sky. The camera has six light filters which span from ultraviolet to near infrared wavelengths.

Karl Glazebrook is a British astronomer, known for his work on galaxy formation, for playing a key role in developing the "nod and shuffle" technique for doing redshift surveys with large telescopes, and for originating the Perl Data Language (PDL).

The Anglo Australian Planet Search or (AAPS) is a long-term astronomical survey started in 1998 and continuing to the present. It is being carried out on the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia. The purpose of this survey is to catalog planets around more than 240 nearby stars of the southern hemisphere. For its observations, the AAT uses the University College London Echelle Spectrograph, UCLES, an echelle spectrograph from the University College London located at the telescope's coudé focus. This survey uses the radial velocity method to search for extrasolar planets.

The Uppsala Schmidt Telescope is a Schmidt telescope located in Australia. It was moved to Siding Spring Observatory from Mount Stromlo Observatory in 1982. The instrument has been used to study galaxies, asteroids and comets. It was last dedicated to the Siding Spring Survey. The telescope had a field of view of just over 6° through the use of a correcting plate, making its field three times as large as that of the Anglo-Australian Telescope. It used a spherical rather than a parabolic mirror with 0.6 m correcting plate to achieve this. Photographic plates and film were used as detectors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Watson</span> Australian astronomer

Frederick Garnett Watson AM is an English-born astronomer and popular scientist in Australia. He holds the role of Australia's First Astronomer at Large within the Commonwealth Government of Australia, relaying the important aspects of Australian astronomy to the government, the general public, and associated organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">6dF Galaxy Survey</span>

The 6dF Galaxy Survey, 6dF or 6dFGS is a redshift survey conducted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) 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 136,304 spectra have yielded 110,256 new extragalactic redshifts and a new catalog of 125,071 galaxies. For a subsample of 6dF a peculiar velocity survey is measuring mass distribution and bulk motions of the local Universe. As of July 2009, it is the third largest redshift survey next to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Gascoigne</span> New Zealand–Australian astronomer (1915–2010)

Sidney Charles Bartholemew "Ben" Gascoigne was a New Zealand-born optical astronomer and expert in photometry who played a leading role in the design and commissioning of Australia's largest optical telescope, the Anglo-Australian Telescope, which for a time was one of the world's most important astronomical facilities. Born in Napier, New Zealand, Gascoigne trained in Auckland and at the University of Bristol, before moving to Australia during World War II to work at the Commonwealth Solar Observatory at Mount Stromlo in Canberra. He became skillful in the design and manufacture of optical devices such as telescope elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey</span> Astronomical survey

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warrick Couch</span> Australian astronomer

Warrick John Couch is an Australian professional astronomer. He is currently a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. He was previously the Director of Australia's largest optical observatory, the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). He was also the president of the Australian Institute of Physics (2015–2017), and a non-executive director on the Board of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization. He was a founding non-executive director of Astronomy Australia Limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amanda Bauer</span> American astronomer and science communicator (born 1979)

Amanda Elaine Bauer is an American professional astronomer and science communicator. She is the Deputy Director and Head of Science and Education at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. She was previously based in Tucson, Arizona, working as Head of Education and Public Outreach at the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. From 2013 to 2016 she was a Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). Her principal field of research concerns how galaxies form, how they create new stars, and particularly why they suddenly stop creating new stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey</span> Scientific astronomy survey

The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey is a large-scale astronomical redshift survey that was carried out on the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at the Siding Spring Observatory, New South Wales between August 2006 and January 2011. The name stems from the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations in the distribution of galaxies.

The Vela Supercluster (Vela SCl, VSCL) is a massive galactic supercluster about 265.5 megaparsecs (870 million light-years) away within the vicinity of the Zone of Avoidance, centered on the constellation Vela. It is one of the largest structures found in the universe, covering about 25 × 20 degrees of the sky. It consists of two walls: a broad main wall and a secondary merging wall. The combined dimensions of the walls are 115 km/s Mpc on the major dimensions and 90 km/s Mpc on the minor ones, which corresponds to about 385 million and 300 million light years, respectively. It is about 1,000 times the mass of the Milky Way galaxy, which corresponds to a mass of 1 × 1015 M☉. About 20 initial galaxy clusters have been identified spectroscopically.

References

  1. ↑ Helen Sim, ed. (14 October 2009), The Anglo-Australian Telescope turns 35 (press release), Australian Astronomical Observatory, archived from the original on 5 January 2013, retrieved 19 January 2013
  2. ↑ "Optical astronomy in Australia". 4 January 2018.
  3. ↑ "UK pulls funding from joint telescope". ABC News. Abc.net.au. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  4. ↑ "Leighton Holdings History". Leighton Holdings. Archived from the original on 11 December 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  5. ↑ The Creation of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, S.C.B. Gascoigne, K.M. Proust and M.O. Robins, Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-35396-3
  6. ↑ Anglo-Australian Observatory Observers Guide. eds. E. Sadler, S. Harrison and S. Lee, AAO UM1.4
  7. ↑ "AAOmega web page at AAO". Aao.gov.au. 16 November 2012. Archived from the original on 5 January 2013. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  8. 1 2 " Colless, Matthew (5 July 2012) The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey". Australian National University
  9. ↑ "WiggleZ project". Swinburne University, Retrieved 15 January 2013
  10. ↑ Blake, C. and the WiggleZ team, 2008, A&G, 49, 19
  11. ↑ "Galaxy and Mass Assembly web pages". European Southern Observatory, Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  12. ↑ "AAPS web pages at UNSW". Phys.unsw.edu.au. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  13. ↑ "6dF Galaxy Survey web pages". 1 April 2009, Australian Astronomical Observatory
  14. ↑ "RAVE webpages at Astrophysics Institute Potsdam". Rave-survey.aip.de. Archived from the original on 20 August 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2013.

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