To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the HDAP scans. For details, see the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain dedication. Of course, you should still give proper credit when using this data as required by good scientific practice.
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Further access options are discussed below
For a list of all services and tables belonging to this service's resource, see Information on resource 'HDAP -- Heidelberg Digitized Astronomical Plates'
The scanning of the plate archive at Landessternwarte Heidelberg was initiated by Holger Mandel and Kurt Birkle in 2006 and was funded by the Klaus-Tschira-Foundation. Almost all usable direct plates in the archives are now scanned, and the funded phase of the project is over. Only minor additions are expected any more.
The plate archive consists of plates from many different sources. The following table gives an overview of the instruments at which the plates were taken:
| plate letter | name | eff. focal length [mm] | aperture ratio | scale [as/mm] | plate size | latitude | longitude | height |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Calar Alto Schmidt telescope | 2400 | f/3 | 86 | 24x24cm | 37.22417 N | +2.5375 W | 2168 m |
| B | Königstuhl Bruce telescope | 2000 | f/5 | 103 | 24x30cm or 30x30cm | 49.39861 N | -8.72083 E | 560 m |
| C | 1.23m in Casseg. focus with corrector | 9857 | f/8 | 20.9 | 24x24cm | 37.22361 N | +2.5461 W | 2138 m |
| D | 72cm Walz- Reflektor | 2815 | f/3.9 | 73.3 | 13x18cm or 9x12cm | 49.39861 N | -8.72083 E | 560 m |
| E | 2.2m in Cassegrain focus with corrector | 17037 | f/7.744 | 12.1 | 20x25cm (8x10in) or 24x24 cm | 37.22361 N | +2.5461 W | 2138 m |
| F | 3.5m in primary focus with 3-lens corrector | 13761 | f/3.93 | 15 | 20x25cm (8x10in) | 37.22361 N | +2.5461 W | 2138 m |
| F | 3.5m in primary focus with 2-lens corrector | 12195 | f/3.48 | 16.9 | 12.5x20 (5x8in) | 37.22361 N | +2.5461 W | 2138 m |
| H | 2.2m MPG ESO/La Silla | 17679 | f/8 | 12 | 20x25cm | -29.257225 S | +70.734595 W | 2335 m |
| G | Wolf's Doppel- astrograph (15cm) on Königstuhl (7/1897-1909) | 900mm | f/6 | 230 | 13x18cm or 9x12cm | +49.39861 N | -8.72083 E | 560m |
| G | Wolf's Doppel- astrograph (15cm) in Märzgasse (1887-7/1897) | 900mm | f/6 | 230 | 13x18cm or 9x12cm | +49.60988 N | -8.69387 E | 110m |
Unfortunately, instrument data on the 2.2m MPG telescope on La Silla are lost. If anyone can help out, please contact gavo@ari.uni-heidelberg.de.
The Observation logs of the more ancient observations are available from UB Heidelberg.
The project was discussed on a poster shown at the 2007 meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in Würzburg.
A slightly more technical article appeared in the proceedings of the 2014 Astroplate conference.
This is what the photographic plates these scans were prepared from look like --
The archive of plates from Wolf's eight-inch telescope --
The Bruce archive -- the rack's bend indicates the plates are kept beneath an observatory dome --
The scanner used by this project (Heidelberg Nexscan F4100; the resolution is 100 pixels per millimeter at 200 pixels per millimeter optical scanner resolution) --
You can access this service using:
1837.52 2000.66
This resource is not (directly) published. This can mean that it was deemed too unimportant, for internal use only, or is just a helper for a published service. Equally likely, however, it is under development, abandoned in development or otherwise unfinished. Exercise some caution.
Other services provided on the underlying data include:
The following fields are available to provide input to the service (with some renderers, some of these fields may be unavailable):
| Name | Table Head | Description | Unit | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dateObs | Obs. date | Epoch at midpoint of observation | d | time;obs.exposure |
| hscs_pos | Plate contains | Coordinates (as h m s, d m s or decimal degrees) or SIMBAD-resolvable object the plate must contain | N/A | N/A |
| imageTitle | Title | Synthetic name of the image | N/A | meta.title |
| object | Targ. Obj. | Designated object on the plate (i.e., the object the observers entered into their journal). | N/A | meta.id |
| plateID | Plate | Image title; to look for a plate by plate number, use something like '~B345*' | N/A | N/A |
The following fields are contained in the output by default. More fields may be available for selection; these would be given below in the VOTable output fields.
| Name | Table Head | Description | Unit | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| acc16 | Scaled 1/16 | Original plate scaled to 6.25% | N/A | meta.ref.url |
| acc4 | Scaled 1/4 | Original plate scaled to 25% | N/A | meta.ref.url |
| accref | Product key | Access key for the data | N/A | meta.ref.url |
| accsize | File size | Size of the data in bytes | byte | VOX:Image_FileSize |
| centerAlpha | Ctr. RA | Approximate center of image, RA | deg | pos.eq.ra |
| centerDelta | Ctr. Dec | Approximate center of image, Dec | deg | pos.eq.dec |
| datalink | DL | URL of a datalink document for this dataset. | N/A | meta.ref.url |
| dateObs | Obs. date | Epoch at midpoint of observation | d | time;obs.exposure |
| exposure | Exp. time | Effective exposure time | s | time.duration;obs.exposure |
| imageTitle | Title | Synthetic name of the image | N/A | meta.title |
| more | More | More exposures near the center of this plate | N/A | N/A |
| object | Targ. Obj. | Special object on plate | N/A | meta.id |
The following fields are available in VOTable output. The verbosity level is a number intended to represent the relative importance of the field on a scale of 1 to 30. The services take a VERB argument. A field is included in the output if their verbosity level is less or equal VERB*10.
| Name | Table Head | Description | Unit | UCD | Verb. Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| centerAlpha | Ctr. RA | Approximate center of image, RA | deg | pos.eq.ra | 0 |
| centerDelta | Ctr. Dec | Approximate center of image, Dec | deg | pos.eq.dec | 0 |
| imageTitle | Title | Synthetic name of the image | N/A | meta.title | 0 |
| dateObs | Obs. date | Epoch at midpoint of observation | d | time;obs.exposure | 0 |
| accref | Product key | Access key for the data | N/A | meta.ref.url | 1 |
| pub_did | Pub. DID | Dataset identifier assigned by the publisher. | N/A | meta.ref.url | 5 |
| bandpassId | Bandpass | Freeform name of the bandpass used | N/A | instr.bandpass | 10 |
| accsize | File size | Size of the data in bytes | byte | VOX:Image_FileSize | 11 |
| pixelScale | Scales | The pixel scale on each image axis | deg/pixel | pos.wcs.scale | 12 |
| instId | Instrument | Identifier of the originating instrument | N/A | meta.id;instr | 15 |
| pixelSize | Axes Lengths | Number of pixels along each of the axes | pixel | pos.wcs.naxis | 15 |
| exposure | Exp. time | Effective exposure time | s | time.duration;obs.exposure | 15 |
| object | Targ. Obj. | Special object on plate | N/A | meta.id | 15 |
| filter | Filter | Filter description | N/A | meta.id;instr.filter;meta.main | 15 |
| startTime | Start | UT at start of exposure | d | time.start;obs | 15 |
| endTime | End | UT at end of exposure | d | time.end;obs | 15 |
| plateID | Plate | Plate name as specified in observation catalogue | N/A | N/A | 15 |
| mime | Type | MIME type of the file served | N/A | meta.code.mime | 20 |
| nAxes | #axes | Number of axes in data | N/A | pos.wcs.naxes | 20 |
| refFrame | Ref. Frame | Coordinate system reference frame | N/A | pos.frame | 20 |
| wcs_equinox | Equinox | Equinox of the given coordinates | yr | time.equinox | 20 |
| wcs_projection | Proj. | FITS WCS projection type | N/A | pos.wcs.ctype | 20 |
| wcs_refPixel | Ref. pixel | WCS reference pixel | pixel | pos.wcs.crpix | 20 |
| wcs_refValues | Ref. values | World coordinates at WCS reference pixel | deg | pos.wcs.crval | 20 |
| wcs_cdmatrix | CD matrix | FITS WCS CDij matrix | deg/pixel | pos.wcs.cdmatrix | 20 |
| bandpassUnit | Bandpass unit | Unit of bandpass specifications (always m). | N/A | N/A | 20 |
| bandpassRefval | Band Ref. | Characteristic quantity for the bandpass of the image | m | instr.bandpass;stat.median | 20 |
| bandpassHi | Band upper | Upper limit of the bandpass (in BandPass_Unit units) | m | instr.bandpass;stat.max | 20 |
| bandpassLo | Band lower | Lower limit of the bandpass (in BandPass_Unit units) | m | instr.bandpass;stat.min | 20 |
| pixflags | P. Flags | Flags specifying the processing done (C-original; F-resampled; Z-fluxes valid; X-not resampled; V-for display only | N/A | meta.code | 20 |
| coverage | Coverage | Field covered by the image | deg | N/A | 20 |
| airmass | Airmass | Airmass at mean epoch | N/A | obs.airMass | 21 |
| emulsion | Emulsion | Emulsion of the original plate | N/A | instr.plate.emulsion | 21 |
| observer | Observer | Observer | N/A | obs.observer | 21 |
| owner | Owner | Owner of the data | N/A | N/A | 25 |
| embargo | Embargo ends | Date the data will become/became public | yr | N/A | 25 |
To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the HDAP scans. For details, see the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain dedication. Of course, you should still give proper credit when using this data as required by good scientific practice.
VOResource XML (that's something exclusively for VO nerds)
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