Technology for digitization of astronomical photographic plates
Technology for digitization of astronomical photographic plates

Summary/Abstract: We present a new technology for digitization of astronomical photographic plates. This technology is applied to include new plates into the Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB, [9]). The need of well-formatted plate metadata put requirements to the acceptance of standard formats for plate/archive description, as well as to the software used for data processing applied to original plate catalogues. The Virtual Observatory [7] requires that the digital image has to be in Flexible Image Transport System (FITS, [6]) file format and equipped with a complete header. The WFPDB offers the most of the metadata needed for creation of the FITS header. The presented here software gives the user appropriate tools for connecting the WFPDB plate catalogues and the plate images. The professional flatbed scanners are the most appropriate devices for scanning astronomical photographic plates. Usually it is imposed to change image files from the inner format of the scanner (or driver) to the standard FITS format. Our software converts the VueScan [8] output TIFF file to FITS file, and in case of scanning with grayscale wedge, divides the plate image and the wedge image.

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