The plate archive of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute
Résumé
The photographic observations in the Sternberg Astronomical Institute started in 1895. Observations were made with sept telescopes in Moscou and Crimea. In total, until 2004, almost 60 000 photographic plates have been accumulated. Most of them have been made to study variable stars and galaxies. Only the 9 000 from 60 000 photographic plates were made to determine the coordinates of Mars, Venus and selected asteroids. These photographic plates are processed. Some of obtained results are published. These 9 000 plates may be the subject of a new processing with the new star catalogs after they are scanned. This work can be undertaken if there is interest in new astrometric data with a modest accuracy for Mars, Venus, and selected asteroids. This year, work has begun to search for objects of the solar system in other 51 000 photographic plates made to study variable stars and galaxies. The main interest was in finding the planets with natural satellites. For given moments of exposure and the coordinates of the field center using a relevant software, we determine the presence of planets on each plate. A significant problem is that most of plates are identified only by the name of the galaxy or star. Our problem is also that only for 25 000 plates we have the moments and the coordinates recorded in the files. For the remaining 26 000 plates these data are still noted on paper. Of the 25 000 examined plates only on 340 of them the planets were found. We should also identify and write to file such data for 26,000 plates to search for planets with our software. For half of the 51 000 plates expected astrometric accuracy is of about 0.2 arcseconds and for other plates the accuracy is not better than 1 arcsecond of arc. About 1 700 photographic plates were scanned for photometric purposes. However astrometric accuracy of the scan does not match the possible accuracy of photographic plates.
Origine | Accord explicite pour ce dépôt |
---|
Loading...