THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX
Document Actions
Astronomical Photographic Data Archive (APDA)
Understanding the physics of astronomical objects relies heavily on observations of change. Short-term changes can be studied through new observations, but what of changes that happen slowly over decades, sometimes almost imperceptibly, occasionally violently, often serendipitously? We can know nothing of those phenomena unless we can access observations taken over a long period of time, a process known as Time Domain Astronomy.
Fortunately, astronomy has rich archives of observations spanning more than 130 years from the mid 1800’s to the 1990’s. These treasured observations are stored on photographic glass plates and film, estimated to total about one million in North America. Unfortunately, this enormously important resource was in danger of being lost forever because there was no centralized collection point for this historic data.
In the fall of 2007, a group of 31 international scientists gathered at PARI to develop a national plan for the preservation of astronomical photographic data. They established the Astronomical Photographic Data Archive (APDA), housed at PARI and dedicated to the task of collecting, restoring, preserving and storing photographic data. APDA is also tasked with scanning each image and establishing a database of images that can be accessed via the Internet by the global community of scientists, researchers and students.
Housed in a highly secure building on the PARI campus, the APDA now has a director and a collection of more than 100,000 photographic images. The APDA also possesses two high precision glass plate scanners, GAMMA I and GAMMA II, that were built for NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The scanners were used by a team of scientists under the leadership of the late Dr. Barry Lasker to develop the Guide Star Catalog and Digitized Sky Survey projects that guide and direct the Hubble Space Telescope. EMC Corporation donated a networked storage system and software that can store and analyze more than 100 terabytes of research data.
The donations to date by PARI, STScI and EMC have allowed the APDA to begin its work. Funding is now needed to ensure that it can continue.
Fortunately, astronomy has rich archives of observations spanning more than 130 years from the mid 1800’s to the 1990’s. These treasured observations are stored on photographic glass plates and film, estimated to total about one million in North America. Unfortunately, this enormously important resource was in danger of being lost forever because there was no centralized collection point for this historic data.
In the fall of 2007, a group of 31 international scientists gathered at PARI to develop a national plan for the preservation of astronomical photographic data. They established the Astronomical Photographic Data Archive (APDA), housed at PARI and dedicated to the task of collecting, restoring, preserving and storing photographic data. APDA is also tasked with scanning each image and establishing a database of images that can be accessed via the Internet by the global community of scientists, researchers and students.
Housed in a highly secure building on the PARI campus, the APDA now has a director and a collection of more than 100,000 photographic images. The APDA also possesses two high precision glass plate scanners, GAMMA I and GAMMA II, that were built for NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). The scanners were used by a team of scientists under the leadership of the late Dr. Barry Lasker to develop the Guide Star Catalog and Digitized Sky Survey projects that guide and direct the Hubble Space Telescope. EMC Corporation donated a networked storage system and software that can store and analyze more than 100 terabytes of research data.
The donations to date by PARI, STScI and EMC have allowed the APDA to begin its work. Funding is now needed to ensure that it can continue.