The Fornax Spectroscopic Survey will use the Two degree Field spectrograph ( 2dF ) of the Anglo-Australian Telescope to obtain spectra for a complete sample of all 14000 objects with 16.5 \leq \hbox { $b _ { j } $ } \leq 19.7 in a 12 square degree area centred on the Fornax Cluster .
The aims of this project include the study of dwarf galaxies in the cluster ( both known low surface brightness objects and putative normal surface brightness dwarfs ) and a comparison sample of background field galaxies .
We will also measure quasars and other active galaxies , any previously unrecognised compact galaxies and a large sample of Galactic stars .
By selecting all objects—both stars and galaxies—independent of morphology , we cover a much larger range of surface brightness and scale size than previous surveys .

In this paper we first describe the design of the survey .
Our targets are selected from UK Schmidt Telescope sky survey plates digitised by the Automated Plate Measuring ( APM ) facility .
We then describe the photometric and astrometric calibration of these data and show that the APM astrometry is accurate enough for use with the 2dF .
We also describe a general approach to object identification using cross-correlations which allows us to identify and classify both stellar and galaxy spectra .

We present results from the first 2dF field .
Redshift distributions and velocity structures are shown for all observed objects in the direction of Fornax , including Galactic stars , galaxies in and around the Fornax Cluster , and for the background galaxy population .
The velocity data for the stars show the contributions from the different Galactic components , plus a small tail to high velocities .
We find no galaxies in the foreground to the cluster in our 2dF field .
The Fornax Cluster is clearly defined kinematically .
The mean velocity from the 26 cluster members having reliable redshifts is 1560 \pm 80 \ > \mbox { km } \ > \mbox { s } ^ { -1 } .
They show a velocity dispersion of 380 \pm 50 \ > \mbox { km } \ > \mbox { s } ^ { -1 } .
Large-scale structure can be traced behind the cluster to a redshift beyond z = 0.3 .
Background compact galaxies and low surface brightness galaxies are found to follow the general galaxy distribution .