On 27th Septermber 1997 we obtained the first science exposures with 400 fibres, 2 spectrographs and 2 CCD cameras (running in parallel). After 4 hard nights of engineering work they were obtained on the first science night for project ATAC-37 (K-band selected redshift survey, for astronomers K. Glazebrook, J. Huang, L. Cowie, C. Tiinney). Alcohol was promptly consumed by the exhausted remnants of the commissioning team (K. Glazebrook, I. Lewis, R. Stathakis). Special thanks also go to the system manager Bob Dean who had to log in at 2am to delete old data files when our incoming data rate suddenly doubled.
With 400 fibres the field plate configurations are starting to become
Byzantine tangles:
