TY - JOUR
T1 - The 6dF Galaxy Survey
T2 - Samples, observational techniques and the first data release
AU - Heath Jones, D.
AU - Saunders, Will
AU - Colless, Matthew
AU - Read, Mike A.
AU - Parker, Quentin A.
AU - Watson, Fred G.
AU - Campbell, Lachlan A.
AU - Burkey, Daniel
AU - Mauch, Thomas
AU - Moore, Lesa
AU - Hartley, Malcolm
AU - Cass, Paul
AU - James, Dionne
AU - Russell, Ken
AU - Fiegert, Kristin
AU - Dawe, John
AU - Huchra, John
AU - Jarrett, Tom
AU - Lahav, Ofer
AU - Lucey, John
AU - Mamon, Gary A.
AU - Proust, Dominique
AU - Sadler, Elaine M.
AU - Wakamatsu, Ken Ichi
PY - 2004/12/11
Y1 - 2004/12/11
N2 - The 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) aims to measure the redshifts of around 150000 galaxies, and the peculiar velocities of a 15000-member subsample, over almost the entire southern sky. When complete, it will be the largest redshift survey of the nearby Universe, reaching out to about z ∼ 0.15, and more than an order of magnitude larger than any peculiar velocity survey to date. The targets are all galaxies brighter than Ktot = 12.75 in the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC), supplemented by 2MASS and SuperCOSMOS galaxies that complete the sample to limits of (H, J, rF, bJ) = (13.05, 13.75, 15.6, 16.75). Central to the survey is the Six-Degree Field (6dF) multifibre spectrograph, an instrument able to record 150 simultaneous spectra over the 5°.7-field of the UK Schmidt Telescope. An adaptive tiling algorithm has been employed to ensure around 95 per cent fibring completeness over the 17046 deg2 of the southern sky with |b| > 10°. Spectra are obtained in two observations using separate V and R gratings, that together give R ∼ 1000 over at least 4000-7500 Å and signal-to-noise ratio ∼10 per pixel. Redshift measurements are obtained semi-automatically, and are assigned a quality value based on visual inspection. The 6dFGS data base is available at http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/6dFGS/, with public data releases occurring after the completion of each third of the survey.
AB - The 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) aims to measure the redshifts of around 150000 galaxies, and the peculiar velocities of a 15000-member subsample, over almost the entire southern sky. When complete, it will be the largest redshift survey of the nearby Universe, reaching out to about z ∼ 0.15, and more than an order of magnitude larger than any peculiar velocity survey to date. The targets are all galaxies brighter than Ktot = 12.75 in the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC), supplemented by 2MASS and SuperCOSMOS galaxies that complete the sample to limits of (H, J, rF, bJ) = (13.05, 13.75, 15.6, 16.75). Central to the survey is the Six-Degree Field (6dF) multifibre spectrograph, an instrument able to record 150 simultaneous spectra over the 5°.7-field of the UK Schmidt Telescope. An adaptive tiling algorithm has been employed to ensure around 95 per cent fibring completeness over the 17046 deg2 of the southern sky with |b| > 10°. Spectra are obtained in two observations using separate V and R gratings, that together give R ∼ 1000 over at least 4000-7500 Å and signal-to-noise ratio ∼10 per pixel. Redshift measurements are obtained semi-automatically, and are assigned a quality value based on visual inspection. The 6dFGS data base is available at http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/6dFGS/, with public data releases occurring after the completion of each third of the survey.
KW - Cosmology: Observations
KW - Galaxies: Clusters: General
KW - Galaxies: Distances and redshifts
KW - Large-scale structure of universe
KW - Surveys
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=10844292799&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08353.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08353.x
M3 - Review article
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 355
SP - 747
EP - 763
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 3
ER -