The Wide-Field Plate Database: Development and Access via Internet

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.The motivations and results from the first 1.5-year period of the project “Wide-field Plate Database (WFPDB): Development and Access via Internet” (DO-02-273/18.12.2008), approved for funding through a competition held by the Bulgarian National Science Fund in the field of Promotion of Research in Priority Areas, are described. The main direction of the development of the project is digitization and preservation of, and web access to, the astronomical plate archives of the 2-m RCC and the 50/70 cm Schmidt telescopes of the Rozhen National Astronomical Observatory received in the period 1979–1998. The basis of the work is set out in Tsvetkov (2006) [1] and Tsvetkova & Tsvetkov (2006) [2], motivating the project over the past 10 years. The WFPDB (www.wfpdb.org) represents a unique virtual instrument in astronomical research, which allows obtaining information on existing astronomical observations of celestial objects over the past 130 years with the professional astronomical telescopes at observatories around the world. Briefly, this is a unique virtual telescope working as a “Time Machine” for obtaining information on historical observations of minor planets, comets, stars and galaxies. The project also aims to continue and expand the successful work initiated during the past 15 years by extending the provision of technical work on the base, and improving and extending the internal LAN (www.skyarchive.org), which ensures rapid online access to data, based on international standards of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) and the European Virtual Observatory (EURO-VO). The main results of this paper are described in detail in the annual report project of July 15, 2010: http://trillian.magrathea.bg:8181/DATABASE FNI 273 2010July/This work is supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science, grants BGNSF DO-02-273 and DO-02-275

Data Extraction from Carte Du Ciel Triple Images

Carte du Ciel (from French, map of the sky) is a part of a 19th century extensive international astronomical project whose goal was to map the entire visible sky. The results of this vast effort were collected in the form of astrographic plates and their paper representatives that are called astrographic maps and are widely distributed among many observatories and astronomical institutes over the world. Our goal is to design methods and algorithms to automatically extract data from digitized Carte du Ciel astrographic maps. This paper examines the image processing and pattern recognition techniques that can be adopted for automatic extraction of astronomical data from stars’ triple expositions that can aid variable stars detection in Carte du Ciel maps

New Capabilities of the Software to Support Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plates

In this article, we announce improvements to two applications for digitizing astronomical photographic plates and developing a new one. In the software for creating the header of fits file using the data from WFPDB (wfpdb.org) we add feature for processing data for multiexposure plates. A new functionality of application for updating fits header allow us to complete fits header for fits files obtained from ImageMagic application. The development of virtual observatories has prompted us to realize a convertor of fits header to GAVO (www.g-vo.org) standard

Astroinformatics : Image processing and analysis of digitized astronomical data with web-based implementation

The newly born area of Astroinformatics has arisen as an interdisciplinary domain from Astronomy and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Recently, four institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences launched a joint project called “Astroinformatics”. The main goal of the project is the development of methods and techniques for preservation and exploitation of the scientific, cultural and historic heritage of the astronomical observations. The Wide-Field Plate Data Base is an ICT project of the Institute of Astronomy, which has been launched in 1991, supported by International Astronomic Union [1]. Now over two million photographic plates, obtained with professional telescopes at 125 observatories worldwide, are identified and collected in this database. Digitization of photographic plates is an actual task for astronomical society. So far 150 000 plates have been digitized through several European research programs. As a result, a huge amount of data is collected (with about 2TB in size). The access, manipulation and data mining of this data is a serious challenge for the ICT community. In this article we discuss goals, tasks and achievements in the area of Astroinformatics

Photographic Plate Libraries at European Astronomical Observatories

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.This paper presents the efforts to organize photographic plate libraries at European astronomical observatories and institutions. The Wide-Field Plate Database project, launched in 1991, has been collecting data about the plates, including plate archives, plate index catalogue data extracted from the logbooks, and digitized plate images. Developing further the WFPDB project, we intend to complete the high-resolution digitization of the plates (in standardized FITS file format) and a suitable digitalization of the catalogues and logbooks (in JPEG and TIFF), with flatbed scanners, and also to organize links to the relevant scientific research papers. At present about 250000 plates have been digitized and await implementation of online access. The main idea is to build an Astro-Multimedia Library, based on the latest methods of Computer Science, in particular on Multiresolution Analysis techniques, which allow for efficient representation of image scans at different resolutions.This work is supported by the BG NSF DO-02-273 and BG NSF DO-02-275 grants

Digital Preservation and Web Access to the Konkoly Observatory Schmidt Telescope Plate Archive

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.The digital preservation of the Konkoly Observatory Schmidt telescope plates, as well as the web access to the plate previews, aim for the preservation of this scientific heritage and the re-use of the astronomical photographic plates in time domain astronomy. The photographic plates used as detectors and information storage at astronomical observations with the Konkoly Schmidt telescope had been obtained in the period 1962–1996. The work on the digital plate preservation and web access started in 2001 with creation of an electronic plate catalogue and the digitization of selected representative plates as well as with interlinking of the publishing in Konkoly Observatory Information Bulletin on Variable Stars (IBVS) with the Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB) developing in Sofia. We describe the process of the digitization of the Konkoly Schmidt telescope plates.This work is supported by the bilateral project between the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and partially by the grants BG NSF DO-02-273 and BG NSF DO-02-275

Software Tools for Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plates

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.In this paper we present tools for helping the process of digitization of astronomical photographic plates. The requirements of Virtual Observatory presume that any FITS file, which contains a digital image, has to be equipped with a complete header. Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB) offers most of the meta-data needed for the creation of FITS header. The header2011 software gives the user an appropriate tool for connecting WFPDB catalogues to digitized plate images. The use of modern scanners sometimes imposes conversion of files from the inner format of the scanner (or driver) into FITS format. The tif2fits software converts VueScan row-tiff format to FITS and also separates plate image and wedge image in case of scanning with grayscale wedge.This work is supported by the German DFG grant STE: 710/6-1/20.11.2009 and partially by the grants of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Science and Youth DO-02-273/275/2009

New Capabilities of the Software to Support Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plates

In this article, we announce improvements to two applications for digitizing astronomical photographic plates and developing a new one. In the software for creating the header of fits file using the data from WFPDB (wfpdb.org) we add feature for processing data for multiexposure plates. A new functionality of application for updating fits header allow us to complete fits header for fits files obtained from ImageMagic application. The development of virtual observatories has prompted us to realize a convertor of fits header to GAVO (www.g-vo.org) standard