The NAROO digitization center

Robert, Vincent; Desmars, J.; Lainey, V.; Arlot, J. E.; Perlbarg, A.-C.; Horville, D.; Aboudarham, Jean; Etienne, Christophe; Guérard, Jean; Ilovaisky, S. A.; Khovritchev, M. Yu.; Poncin-Lafitte, Christophe Le; Suu, A. Le van; Neiner, C.; Pascu, D.; Poirier, L.; Schneider, Jodi; Tanga, P.; Valls–Gabaud, D.

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202140472

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…However, efficient but non-destructive digitization of astronomical plates is extremely difficult to achieve. Only a few astronomical observatories, such as the Harvard College Observatory [5] , the Royal Observatory of Belgium [6] , and the Paris Observatory [7] have successfully developed high-precision plate digitizers. This is markedly insufficient to ensure full digitization of the considerable worldwide collection of astronomical plates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and application of high-precision multifunction astronomical plate digitizers in China

Yang,

Yu,

Wang

et al. 2024

Astronomical Techniques and Instrument

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Before charge-coupled device detectors became widely employed in observational astronomy, for more than a hundred years, the main detection method was photography on astronomical glass plates. Recently, in order to preserve these historical data and maintain their usability, the International Astronomical Union has appealed to all countries for global digitization of astronomical plates by developing or adopting advanced digitization technology. Specialized digitizers with high precision and high measuring speed represent key equipment for this task. The Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and the Nishimura Co., Ltd in Japan cooperated between 2013 and 2016 to develop the first Chinese high-precision astronomical plate digitizer, which was then used for complete digitization of all nighttime-observation astronomical plates in China. Then, in 2019-2021, the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory independently developed new models of plate digitizers that enabled countries such as Uzbekistan and Italy to digitize their astronomical plates. Additionally, a new high-precision and multifunction digitizer was also used to digitize valuable microscope slides from the Shanghai Natural History Museum, providing a successful example of crossdomain application of high-precision digitization technology.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and application of high-precision multifunction astronomical plate digitizers in China

Yang,

Yu,

Wang

et al. 2024

Astronomical Techniques and Instrument

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“…In 2018, the IAU General Assembly passed a resolution once again, urging global collaboration and joint efforts within the astronomical community to accelerate plate digitization. Currently, several research institutions in different countries have carried out astronomical plate digitization projects, including the DASH project at Harvard College Observatory (Simcoe et al 2006), the APPLAUSE project jointly initiated by German observatories (Tuvikene et al 2014), the NAROO project initiated by the Paris Observatory in France (Robert et al 2021) and the D4A project at the Royal Observatory of Belgium (De Cuyper & Winter 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Shang 商,

Yu 于,

Wang 王

et al. 2024

Res. Astron. Astrophys.

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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.

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“…In addition to the study of proper motions, the very accurate measurements of Gaia can be interconnected also to other studies, which are made by utilising old photographic plates, such as studies of asteroids and general relativity (Robert et al 2021). Partly for these purposes, there is renewed interest in accurate plate digitisers, such as the one at the New Astrometric Reduction of Old Observations (NAROO) digitisation centre (Robert et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carte du Ciel andGaia

Lehtinen

Prusti²,

Bruijne³

et al. 2023

A&A

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Context. The Carte du Ciel archive at the University of Helsinki enables us to see the sky as it was about 120 yr ago. The archive consists of single-exposure and triple-exposure plates between epochs 1896.8–1925.8. Aims. Our main aim is to find binary and multiple stars by combining Carte du Ciel and Gaia data. Methods. The plates were digitised with a commercial digital camera. We used Gaia data to calculate predicted coordinates of stars at the epoch of each plate. These stars were used as reference stars to fit astrometry for each plate, giving fitted coordinates for stars on the Carte du Ciel plates. If the predicted and fitted coordinates differed at a significant level, we classified the star as a non-single star, for which the proper motion values given in the Gaia catalogue can be unreliable. Results. We find that several astrometric quality indicators of Gaia indicate that the uncertainties of Gaia’s single-star model fit are, in general, larger for our non-single-star candidates. The percentage of our non-single-star candidates, which are in the catalogues of known binary stars, is relatively low, ~10% at maximum. Conclusions. The combination of the Carte du Ciel and Gaia data can be used to identify candidates of non-single stars. We propose that the sources with a significant difference between the predicted and fitted coordinates are long-period binaries, although astrophysical and/or instrumental effects as origin for the coordinate difference cannot be excluded for individual cases.

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The NAROO digitization center

Cited by 5 publications

References 79 publications

Development and application of high-precision multifunction astronomical plate digitizers in China

Development and application of high-precision multifunction astronomical plate digitizers in China

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

Carte du Ciel andGaia

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