Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plate of China and Astrometric Measurement of Single-exposure Plates

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Main Authors: Shang, Zheng-Jun, Yu, Yong, Wang, Liang-Liang, Yang, Mei-Ting, Yang, Jing, Shen, Shi-Yin, Liu, Min, Xu, Quan-Feng, Cui, Chen-Zhou, Fan, Dong-Wei, Tang, Zheng-Hong, Zhao, Jian-Hai
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Published: 2024
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author Shang, Zheng-Jun
Yu, Yong
Wang, Liang-Liang
Yang, Mei-Ting
Yang, Jing
Shen, Shi-Yin
Liu, Min
Xu, Quan-Feng
Cui, Chen-Zhou
Fan, Dong-Wei
Tang, Zheng-Hong
Zhao, Jian-Hai
author_facet Shang, Zheng-Jun
Yu, Yong
Wang, Liang-Liang
Yang, Mei-Ting
Yang, Jing
Shen, Shi-Yin
Liu, Min
Xu, Quan-Feng
Cui, Chen-Zhou
Fan, Dong-Wei
Tang, Zheng-Hong
Zhao, Jian-Hai
contents From the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century, photographic plates served as the primary detectors for astronomical observations. Astronomical photographic observations in China began in 1901, and over a century, a total of approximately 30,000 astronomical photographic plates have been captured. These historical plates play an irreplaceable role in conducting long-term, time-domain astronomical research. To preserve and explore these valuable original astronomical observational data, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory has organized the transportation of plates taken at night from various stations across the country to the Sheshan Plate Archive for centralized preservation. For the first time, plate information statistics was performed. On this basis, the plates were cleaned and digitally scanned, and finally digitized images were acquired for 29,314 plates. In this study, using Gaia DR2 as the reference star catalog, astrometric processing has been carried out successfully on 15,696 single-exposure plates, including object extraction, stellar identification, and plate model computation. As a result, for long focal length telescopes, such as the 40cm double-tube refractor telescope and the 1.56m reflector telescope at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and the 1m reflector telescope at the Yunnan Astronomical Observatory, the astrometric accuracy obtained for their plates is approximately 0.1" to 0.3". The distribution of astrometric accuracy for medium and short focal length telescopes ranges from 0.3" to 1.0". The relevant data of this batch of plates, including digitized images and stellar catalog of the plates are archived and released by the National Astronomical Data Center. Users can access and download plate data based on keywords such as station, telescope, observation year, and observed celestial coordinates.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_09094
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plate of China and Astrometric Measurement of Single-exposure Plates
Shang, Zheng-Jun
Yu, Yong
Wang, Liang-Liang
Yang, Mei-Ting
Yang, Jing
Shen, Shi-Yin
Liu, Min
Xu, Quan-Feng
Cui, Chen-Zhou
Fan, Dong-Wei
Tang, Zheng-Hong
Zhao, Jian-Hai
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
From the mid-19th century to the end of the 20th century, photographic plates served as the primary detectors for astronomical observations. Astronomical photographic observations in China began in 1901, and over a century, a total of approximately 30,000 astronomical photographic plates have been captured. These historical plates play an irreplaceable role in conducting long-term, time-domain astronomical research. To preserve and explore these valuable original astronomical observational data, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory has organized the transportation of plates taken at night from various stations across the country to the Sheshan Plate Archive for centralized preservation. For the first time, plate information statistics was performed. On this basis, the plates were cleaned and digitally scanned, and finally digitized images were acquired for 29,314 plates. In this study, using Gaia DR2 as the reference star catalog, astrometric processing has been carried out successfully on 15,696 single-exposure plates, including object extraction, stellar identification, and plate model computation. As a result, for long focal length telescopes, such as the 40cm double-tube refractor telescope and the 1.56m reflector telescope at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and the 1m reflector telescope at the Yunnan Astronomical Observatory, the astrometric accuracy obtained for their plates is approximately 0.1" to 0.3". The distribution of astrometric accuracy for medium and short focal length telescopes ranges from 0.3" to 1.0". The relevant data of this batch of plates, including digitized images and stellar catalog of the plates are archived and released by the National Astronomical Data Center. Users can access and download plate data based on keywords such as station, telescope, observation year, and observed celestial coordinates.
title Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plate of China and Astrometric Measurement of Single-exposure Plates
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09094