Summary

In this paper we have described a major imaging and spectroscopic survey of rich galaxy clusters at that we are currently undertaking. The primary purpose of the paper has been to describe the design and scientific goals of the survey, give details of the cluster sample that we are targeting, and present some initial and very preliminary results. Publication of the major scientific results from the study must await future papers. Nonetheless, we regard this paper to serve a useful purpose in alerting other workers in the field to our study and thus perhaps focusing future observational efforts, particularly at other wavelengths (eg. radio), on our cluster sample.

As discussed in §3, the optical CCD imaging component of our survey is essentially complete. The timescale for completion of the X-ray imaging and 2dF spectroscopy is another 2 years although both are well underway with data collected for % of our sample. At the conclusion of the project it is our intention to make our substantial data base of cluster imagery, photometry and spectroscopy publically available.

© Copyright Astronomical Society of Australia 1997