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A Coudé Auxiliary Feed for the AAT: a Focus for International Co-operation in Optical Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

P. Gillingham
Affiliation:
Anglo-Australian Telescope, Coonabarabran NSW 2357
M. Pettini
Affiliation:
Anglo-Australian Telescope, Coonabarabran NSW 2357
M. Bessell
Affiliation:
Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, Private Bag, Weston ACT 2611
L. Cram
Affiliation:
School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
K. Ogura
Affiliation:
Kokugakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

In 1988, a very powerful and versatile coudé echelle spectrograph was installed at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Since then it has been winning about 30% of AAT time and has been highly productive scientifically. Therefore, using a coudé auxiliary telescope (CAT) to give the spectrograph more use and to free the AAT for other work is a very attractive possibility, particularly if the CAT can give a sensitivity similar to that obtained with the 3.9-metre telescope. While a conventional CAT with such performance would be very expensive, a much cheaper instrument should approach this goal, at least for high resolution spectroscopy. Even so, the cost could not be met in a reasonable time within the AAO’s budget; hence, additional international collaboration is being sought.

Type
Instruments & Facilities
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1991

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References

Gillingham, P. R., 1989, Astrophys. Space Sci., 160, 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillingham, P. R., 1990, “The Merits of Inertial Drives for Ground-based Optical Telescopes”, SPIE Conference 1236: Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes IV.Google Scholar