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

Abstract

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.