J.D. Cline1,T. Barker1, M. W. Castelaz1

1Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute

The Astronomical Photographic Data Archive

Not-for-profit foundation

215th Meeting of the American Astronomical SocietySession 469.07 Wednesday, January 6, 2010

www.pari.edu

ACCESS• Preliminary catalogues of plates are available online:

• Visits are encouraged. APDA has light tables, and high resolution scanners

• Requests for limited scanning of plates can be accommodated

• Move towards compatibility with NVO, SIMBAD

• APDA 64-bit 16 GB RAM computer

• High resolution transmission scanner.

• 107 TB storage array available for images

MAJOR COLLECTIONS

DIGITIZING

INTRODUCTION• About 2 Million Photographic plates from late 19th

Century to about 1990 are historic and valuable and in danger of being lost.

• Plates have been destroyed, neglected, inaccessible.• Are time-domain resources for time-domain astronomy.• Preserve these unique time-domain resources and make

them available to scientists, researchers, and historians.

PURPOSE OF APDA• Astronomical photographic data constitute an

enormously important and, for the large part, unrepeatable resource for astronomical research.

• APDA is essential both for the health of astronomical science and for credibility of the current generation of astronomers as guardians of its unique heritage.

• The three functions of APDA are: 1. Rescue and Preserve Collections2. Archive Collections3. Digitize Collections

APDA is located on the lower floor of a 10,000 sq. ft. building near the center of the 200-acre PARI campus.

The arrow in above figure points to the building.

APDA has become the home to extremely important archived data that might not otherwise survive or be accessible. More collections are anticipated, and expansion to 10,000 square feet of floor space is possible. Even though the collections will be preserved, the realization that the 21st century astronomy demands an online, virtual observatory workplace is motivation for APDA to proceed with digitization of all plates in all stored collections. To this end, APDA plans to re-calibrate the GAMMA I machine for this purpose, and begin the precise digitization process. The future of APDA depends on the foresight of astronomers who understand the importance of preserving their science and heritage.

SUMMARY

• GAMMA II STScI Microdensitometer is now located in APDA at PARI.

Collection Telescope Number of Plates Years

Cerro Tololo Observatory

24-inch f/3.5 Curtis Schmidt

6,500 direct and objective prism plates

1968-1986

University of Michigan

37.5-inch f/19 reflector

20,000 spectra plates

1911-1963

Warner Swasey Observatory

24/36-inch f/3.5Burrell Schmidt

22,000 direct andobjective prism plates

1944-1992

Prairie Meteor Network

16 wide-field Metrogen f/6.3 150-mm f.l. cameras

11,000 films

1964-1975

United States Naval Observatory

Astrograph 4,500 plates

1975-1991

Harvard Meteor Project

Two 12-inch f/0.8 Baker Superschmidts

30,000 molded films 1953-1968

Barry Lasker Scanning Lab. GAMMA II, above, was used to scan and build the Hubble Space Telescope Guide Star

Catalog and Digital Sky Survey.

Contact Information

Michael Castelaz Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute mcastelaz@pari.edu One PARI Drive828-966-4207 Rosman, NC 28772

The Harvard Meteor Survey, consisting of 40,000 molded films are safely archived in easily accessible containers.

The APDA office is located adjacent to the main archive area. The office is fully equipped with

scanners, computers, and Internet access.

The main archive area. The number of astronomical photographic plates stored in this area totals more than 50,000

Lambda Centaurus Nebula

June 22/23, 1976

160 minute exposure

098-04 emulsion

D-19 developer

CTIO 0.9-m f/3.5 Schmidt Telescope