The Anglo-Australian Observatory 2dF facility

By Ian Lewis, R. Cannon, K. Taylor, Karl Glazebrook, J. Bailey, I. Baldry, J. Barton, T. Bridges, G. Dalton, T. Farrell and 13 more. 2002

268 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The 2dF (Two-degree Field) facility at the prime focus of the Anglo-Australian Telescope provides multiple-object spectroscopy over a 2° field of view. Up to 400 target fibres can be independently positioned by a complex robot. Two spectrographs provide spectra with resolutions of between 500 and 2000, over wavelength ranges of 440 and 110 nm respectively. The 2dF facility began routine observations in 1997. 2dF was designed primarily for galaxy redshift surveys and has a number of innovative features. The large corrector lens incorporates an atmospheric dispersion compensator, essential for wide wavelength coverage with small-diameter fibres. The instrument has two full sets of fibres on separate field plates, so that re-configuring can be done in parallel with observing. The robot positioner places one fibre every 6 s, to a precision of 0.3 arcsec (20 μm) over the full field. All components of 2dF, including the spectrographs, are mounted on a 5-m diameter telescope top end ring for ease of handling and to keep the optical fibres short in order to maximize UV throughput. There is a pipeline data reduction system which allows each data set to be fully analysed while the next field is being observed. 2dF has achieved its initial astronomical goals. The redshift surveys obtain spectra at the rate of 2500 galaxies per night, yielding a total of about 200 000 objects in the first four years. Typically a B=19 galaxy gives a spectrum with a signal-to-noise ratio of better than 10 per pixel in less than an hour; redshifts are derived for about 95 per cent of all galaxies, with 99 per cent reliability or better. Total system throughput is about 5 per cent. The failure rate of the positioner and fibre system is about 1:10 000 moves or once every few nights, and recovery time is usually short. In this paper we provide the historical background to the 2dF facility, the design philosophy, a full technical description and a summary of the performance of the instrument. We also briefly review its scientific applications and possible future developments.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Ten eclipsing binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud: fundamental parameters and SMC distance (2002, methodology): “The 2dFdr package was used to reduce the data, with default settings (Lewis et al. 2002).”
Galaxy bimodality versus stellar mass and environment (2006, background): “The fraction of galaxies with EW > 4Å varied continuously with environmental density and there was no evidence of a break density that had been reported before (Lewis et al. 2002; Gómez et al. 2003).”
The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Samples, observational techniques and the first data release (2004, methodology): “The 6dF positioner, though building on the expertise and technology successfully developed and employed in the 2dF facility of AAO (e.g. Lewis et al. 2002), and in previous incarnations of fibre-fed spectrographs at the UKST such as FLAIR (Parker & Watson 1995), is nevertheless a significant…”
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey: the LRG 2-point correlation function and redshift-space distortions (2006, background): “The design of the 2dF instrument means that fibres cannot be placed closer than approximately 30 arcsec (Lewis et al. 2002) so both members of a close pair of galaxies cannot be targeted in a single fibre configuration.”
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) luminous red galaxy survey (2006, background): “More details of the spectrographs and their performance are given in Lewis et al. (2002).”
Binary planetary nebulae nuclei towards the Galactic bulge - I. Sample discovery, period distribution, and binary fraction (2009, methodology): “The 2dF multi-object spectroscopy facility on the 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope enables 400 objects to be observed simultaneously over a 2-degree field of view using optical fibres (Lewis et al. 2002).”
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey: the QSO luminosity function at 0.4 < z < 2.6 (2009, methodology): “The reality of such a flattening of the peak redshift could be confirmed by faint QSO samples that probe to higher redshift, such as the AAOmega–UKIDSS1–SDSS (AUS) Survey currently underway at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (Croom et al., in preparation).”
The 2dF QSO Redshift Survey – XII. The spectroscopic catalogue and luminosity function (2004, background): “Details of the 2dF instrument can be found in Lewis et al. (2002).”
Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS (2003, methodology): “The wide wavelength range is made possible by the use of an atmospheric dispersion compensator (ADC) within the 2dF instrument (Lewis et al. 2002b).”
The GALAH survey: scientific motivation (2015, methodology): “HERMES receives light from the existing 2-degree Field (2dF) fibre positioning system, mounted at the prime focus of the AAT, which collects light into 400 fibres over a circular field 2 deg in diameter (Lewis et al. 2002).”
Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): survey diagnostics and core data release (2010, methodology): “The survey is being conducted using the AAT’s AAOmega spectrograph system (an upgrade of the original 2dF spectrographs: Lewis et al. 2002; Sharp et al. 2006).”
Fibre-Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS) for Subaru Telescope (2010, background): “The prime focus of Subaru telescope has a fast F-ratio and a wide field of view, however it is too small (about 150mm in diameter) to use a fibre positioner with magnetic buttons such as 2dF/AAT (Lewis et al. 2002).”
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Spectroscopic analysis (2013, background): “The fibres have a2′′ diameter projected on the sky (Lewis et al. 2002).”
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): the input catalogue and star–galaxy separation (2009, methodology): “The advent of multi-object spectrographs such as the Two-Degree Field (2dF; Lewis et al. 2002) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000) telescope have enabled redshift surveys of> 105 galaxies: the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) and SDSS Main Galaxy Sample (MGS).”
Deciphering the Last Major Invasion of the Milky Way (2002, methodology): “Our survey uses the two-degree-field multi-object spectrograph (2dF; Lewis et al. 2002) on the Anglo-Australian Telescope, which provides 400 spectra simultaneously; we obtained data with spectral resolution of 2.5 ˚ A, in the wavelength range of 3700-4700Å.”
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: galaxy clustering per spectral type (2003, unknown): “As a result of the design of the 2dF instrument, fibres cannot be placed closer than approximately 30 arcsec (Lewis et al. 2002).”
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: correlation functions, peculiar velocities and the matter density of the Universe (2002, background): “The design of the 2dF instrument means that fibres cannot be placed closer than approximately 30 arcsec (Lewis et al. 2002), and so both members of a close pair of galaxies cannot be targeted in a single fibre configuration.”