General Background
The AAO makes available a range of manuals describing the AAT, its instruments and their operation. Most manuals were originally distributed in, and are still only available in, hardcopy form. The AAO retains copies of many of these manuals and, whenever possible, will distribute these on request. However, in many cases only single copies remain at the Observatory. Visiting astronomers are welcome to peruse these, and make their own copies, however the Observatory cannot distribute copies of these older manuals. In recent years, more and more manuals have been made available as either Postscript files archived on-line, or as WWW-based manuals.
In the past AAO manuals were assigned a unique number (either User Manual "UM" or Technical Manual "TM" numbers). Technical manuals are generally aimed at the telescope's engineering staff - of these only the few which are conceivably of interest to astronomers are listed. WWW-based documentation pages are rarely assigned manual numbers anymore.
AAO manuals that are available can be found listed by:
- History - which manuals are regularly updated, and those which are obsolete.
- Manual Master List - a "master" list of all AAO manuals, their availability, and (where relevant) their numbers.
Obtaining Hardcopies
Should you wish to obtain a hardcopy version of one of the available AAO manuals you can request one from the AAO Librarian, Sandra Ricketts (lib -@- aao.gov.au or by regular mail - see Contacting the AAO). Please specify the title and UM or TM number of the manual you are interested in.