The Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral-Field Spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey began in March 2013 and observed 3,000 galaxies across a large range of environments.
SAMI uses plate-plugged optical fibre integral field units (IFUs) that feed the AAOmega spectrograph to collect data of 12 galaxies simultaneously. Each of the IFUs are fused fibre bundles called “hexabundles.” Each hexabundle has 61 individual fibres which can each collect a unique spectrum from different parts across the galaxy. Collecting data in this way allowed SAMI to collect an order of magnitude larger sample of spatially resolved galaxies than previously existed.
