General Monthly Meeting
RAVE - The Radial Velocity Experiment
Dr Fred Watson
Director of the Anglo-Australian Telescope, Coonabarabran.
Date: Wednesday, 2nd July, 2003
Time: 6:00 for 6:30 pm
Venue: Search & Discover Room, Australian Museum,
Collins St., Sydney (William St. entrance)
by D.A. Craddock.
The July meeting of the Society was held at the Australian Museum, where the weather deterred all but the hardiest from attending a fascinating RAVE. Dr Watson's presentation was an appropriate follow-up to the June talk on the possibilities of time travel. A short history of the galaxy provided the audience with some appreciation of the background to the topic for discussion - Radial Velocity Experiment, or RAVE.
Much of the understanding of galaxy formation is locked up within the motions and chemical compositions of the stars in our galaxy. The RAVE survey is intended to provide radial-velocity data, metallicity and abundance ratios on an all-sky scale. A pilot RAVE project is being conducted through the UK Schmidt telescope at Siding Springs. This is achieved through 150 individual optical fibres, which are each placed to measure a bright spot within the field under scrutiny. Each field encompasses 6 degrees, and 8 such fields are measured each night, resulting in the measurement of 600 stars.
By the end of 2010, the number of measurements will be 22 000 per night! The 6 degrees of field is far too slow for such an increased level of measurements. This will be possible through the development of Echidna, with 2 250 electronically controlled 'spines', and of course, funding.
Dr Watson's enthusiastic style of presentation was infectious, and drew many questions from the audience. The vote of thanks was offered by Dr Michael Lake, and keenly endorsed by those present.
For those who would like to understand more about this project, please visit www.aip.de/RAVE/