Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA)

The GAMA survey (Driver et al. 2008) commenced on 1 March 2008 using AAOmega to obtain 50k new galaxy redshifts and spectra over 21 clear nights, out of the 22 awarded. GAMA is the latest Large Observing Programme, which was allocated an initial 66 nights by AATAC over a three year period. This takes GAMA up to the point at which the UK involvement in the AAT finally stops. In a sentence, GAMA is a study of structures on kpc to Mpc scales and builds on the longstanding Anglo-Australian tradition of world class galaxy redshift surveys (APM, Autofib, LDSS, 2dFGRS, MGC, 6dFGS), but with an additional twist: GAMA is not a single facility programme but draws data from several telescopes and satellites (see Fig. 1) to produce a truly unique large area multi-wavelength survey. Substantial time has now been allocated for GAMA area follow-up on the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope (VISTA), the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), and ESA’s Herschel Space Telescope (Herschel). The GAMA Team also leads a pending time request for the NASA Galaxy Explorer Space Telescope (GALEX), and discussions are underway to adopt one or more of the GAMA regions for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) deep field(s).