The GALAH survey: Observational overview and Gaia DR1 companion

S. L. Martell, S. Sharma, S. Buder, L. Duong, K. J. Schlesinger, J. Simpson, K. Lind, M. Ness, J. P. Marshall, M. Asplund, J. Bland-Hawthorn, A. R. Casey, G. De Silva, K. C. Freeman, J. Kos, J. Lin, D. B. Zucker, T. Zwitter, B. Anguiano, C. BacigalupoD. Carollo, L. Casagrande, G. S. Da Costa, J. Horner, D. Huber, E. A. Hyde, P. R. Kafle, G. F. Lewis, D. Nataf, C. A. Navin, D. Stello, C. G. Tinney, F. G. Watson, R. Wittenmyer

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    165 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) survey is amassive observational project to trace the MilkyWay's history of star formation, chemical enrichment, stellar migration and minor mergers. Using high-resolution (R ≃ 28 000) spectra, taken with the High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph (HERMES) instrument at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, GALAH will determine stellar parameters and abundances of up to 29 elements for up to one million stars. Selecting targets from a colour-unbiased catalogue built from 2MASS, APASS and UCAC4 data, we expect to observe dwarfs at 0.3-3 kpc and giants at 1-10 kpc. This enables a thorough local chemical inventory of the Galactic thin and thick discs, and also captures smaller samples of the bulge and halo. In this paper, we present the plan, process and progress as of early 2016 for GALAH survey observations. In our first two years of survey observing we have accumulated the largest high-quality spectroscopic data set at this resolution, over 200 000 stars. We also present the first public GALAH data catalogue: stellar parameters (Teff, log(g), [Fe/H], [α/Fe]), radial velocity, distance modulus and reddening for 10 680 observations of 9860 Tycho-2 stars, 7894 of which are included in the first Gaia data release.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)3203-3219
    Number of pages17
    JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Volume465
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2017

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The GALAH survey: Observational overview and Gaia DR1 companion'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this