TAIPAN - a spectrograph to survey the southern sky

The TAIPAN spectroscopic survey of the southern sky aims to quadruple the number of nearby galaxies with measured redshifts, distances and velocities. Science goals include measuring the expansion rate of the universe to 1% precision, and combining optical spectroscopy and radio data for each galaxy to measure the rate at which gas is being converted into stars in the local universe. This proposal supports construction of the TAIPAN high-performance spectrograph that will be used to carry out the survey on the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST). The spectrograph, like the UKST, will be owned by ANU and operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory. The results of the survey will be made freely available to all Australian astronomers.