Sky surveys and atlases

At Epping

The following sky surveys  are available in the sky survey room on the ground floor of the Epping Laboratory:

 
Table 11.1: Sky surveys available at Epping

Transparent overlays showing positions of bright stars, galaxies and clusters are available for all Palomar survey fields with centres north of -42° (including the `Whiteoak extension'). Overlays showing the field of view available at the AAT Cassegrain or prime focus (with autoguider) are kept in the sky survey room.

The sky survey room has light tables equipped with binocular microscopes and hand magnifiers. A Nikkon type 109 camera, which uses normal Polaroid film, is available for making finding charts.

The sky survey room also has a TV (Bolton) comparator  with position measuring attachments (see § 10.2). The machine is mainly used to measure accurate positions for objects on sky survey film or glass copies (the readout accuracy is a few microns over a 10cm field), but the two TV cameras available can also be used to compare a pair of plates or display objective prism spectra.

Other facilities include a computer terminal (which shares a line to the VAX) and a small library of handy documentation including the SAO catalogue, UKST and AAT plate catalogues and some useful reprints.

At Siding Spring

The chart room on level 1 of the AAT dome contains a large number of star catalogues plus the following sky surveys:

 
Table 11.2: Sky surveys available at Siding Spring

For making finding charts, there is a a Polaroid MP4 copying camera, with lenses of focal length 35mm, 75mm and 135mm. A small supply of Polaroid film is provided.

Two Zeiss Abbe comparators (see § 10.4) for measuring AAT plates are available on the first floor of the AAT dome. Facilities for measuring positions also exist at the Schmidt telescope, where there are more extensive sets of sky surveys and a Bolton measuring machine.