Engineering details of most of the system can be found in the literature. The robotic fibre positioner, Autofib-2, was built at the University of Durham, and an account of the instrument is given by Parry et al. (in Instrumentation in Astronomy VIII, Proc. SPIE 2198 (1994), 125). Its control systems are described by Lewis, Jones & Parry ( ibid., 947). Much of the work on the first fibre feed has been carried out at the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) and is described by Worswick et al. ( ibid., 44). The second fibre feed is still at the planning stage, but this will also be fabricated at RGO. The spectrograph itself is known as WYFFOS (WYde-Field Fibre-Optics Spectrograph); it, too, is being built at RGO, and a description is given by Bingham et al. ( ibid., 56).
Some of the main parameters of the facility are summarised in
Table 
,
and descriptions of the various components are given in the
following paragraphs.
Table: WHT Prime Focus System: Main Parameters