Jones, D HeathSaunders, WillColless, MatthewRead, MichaelParker, Quentin AWatson, Fred GCampbell, LachlanBurkey, DanielMauch, ThomasMoore, LesaHartley, MalcolmCass, PaulJames, DionneRussell, Ken SFiegert, KristinDawe, John AlanHuchra, JohnJarrett, Thomas HLahav, OferLucey, JohnMamon, GaryProust, DominiqueSadler, Elaine MWakamatsu, Ken-ichi2015-12-132015-12-130035-8711http://hdl.handle.net/1885/87306The 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) aims to measure the redshifts of around 150000 galaxies, and the peculiar velocities of a 15000-member subsample, over almost the entire southern sky. When complete, it will be the largest redshift survey of the nearby Universe, reaching out to about z ∼ 0.15, and more than an order of magnitude larger than any peculiar velocity survey to date. The targets are all galaxies brighter than Ktot = 12.75 in the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC), supplemented by 2MASS and SuperCOSMOS galaxies that complete the sample to limits of (H, J, rF, bJ) = (13.05, 13.75, 15.6, 16.75). Central to the survey is the Six-Degree Field (6dF) multifibre spectrograph, an instrument able to record 150 simultaneous spectra over the 5°.7-field of the UK Schmidt Telescope. An adaptive tiling algorithm has been employed to ensure around 95 per cent fibring completeness over the 17046 deg2 of the southern sky with |b| > 10°. Spectra are obtained in two observations using separate V and R gratings, that together give R ∼ 1000 over at least 4000-7500 Å and signal-to-noise ratio ∼10 per pixel. Redshift measurements are obtained semi-automatically, and are assigned a quality value based on visual inspection. The 6dFGS data base is available at http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/6dFGS/, with public data releases occurring after the completion of each third of the survey.Keywords: Cosmology: Observations; Galaxies: Clusters: General; Galaxies: Distances and redshifts; Large-scale structure of universe; Surveys200410.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08353.x2015-12-12