HERMES – An instrument of the future

HERMES is a new, multi-object high resolution spectrometer for the 3.9m Anglo Australian Telescope, using the existing 2dF positioner. The primary goal of the HERMES survey is to unravel the history of the Galaxy from detailed elemental abundances for about 1.2 million individual stars. The HERMES chemical tagging survey concentrates on the 5000 to 8000 ˚A window at a resolving power of 30,000 in order to identify dissolved star formation aggregates and ascertain the importance of mergers throughout the history of the Galaxy.