| Alternative names | RAVE |
|---|---|
| Website | www |
RAVE (RAdial Velocity Experiment) is a multi-fiber spectroscopic astronomical survey of stars in the Milky Way using the 1.2-metre UK Schmidt Telescope of the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). The RAVE collaboration consists of researchers from over 20 institutions around the world and is coordinated by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).
As a southern hemisphere survey covering 20,000 square degrees of the sky, RAVE's primary aim is to derive the radial velocity of stars from the observed spectra. Additional information is also derived such as effective temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, photometric parallax and elemental abundance data for the stars.
On April 5, 2013 RAVE concluded its phase of data taking. In an almost ten year observing campaign, a total of 574,630 spectra have been obtained on 483,330 individual stars by a small team of AAO observers, with other observers making occasional visits from RAVE participating institutions.