We are indebted to John Barton, for his technical expertise, for his excellent AAO-1 CCD controller and his willingness to undertake major developments. We are grateful to Tony Farrell for the control software, and to Lew Waller, Ed Penny and Chris McCowage for hardware development. Chris Pietraszewski (Queensgate Instruments) provided us with important information on the plate coatings. One of us (DHJ) acknowledges the financial support of a Commonwealth Australian Postgraduate Research Award.