Astronomical observatories still hold archives of old photographic glass plates from before digital detectors, and some institutions, including Harvard, run programs to digitize them. Blanton argues that digitizing such archives should be driven by a specific scientific question rather than done wholesale, since the plates vary enormously in size, format, and condition. He notes that for objects with long observational histories, such as certain stars, plate archives can hold decades to over a century of data.
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Blanton admits he does not know Carnegie's current policy for letting outside astronomers request specific archival plates, though he says the answer should be yes.
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Krishna recalls being told on a prior tour that Carnegie does allow researchers to request plates covering a specific part of the sky.
384 words · auto-generated from the episode video
24:01plans with all the photographic plates in your basement? >> I think no the answer to that is no. >> Yeah, I mean it's always a hassle. >> So so there there there are program like Harvard has a program for their library where they they're digitizing all of these things. I I think that is in principle interesting. I think you have to I think you have to do it in a science driven way. I think because it's such a big problem. I mean you've seen >> Yeah. >> Yeah, you know there was all sorts of things all sorts of different data all sizes and shapes. Um and so you really would you want to approach that with I really want to
24:41study X and I'm going to do something I think that's the way you approach that. >> Yes and and for what it's worth I mean any astronomer can request Carnegie for like a specific plate and things like that right? You have some way of doing it? >> I don't know the answer to that question. That's one of the things I >> Yeah. >> I should probably know. >> Okay, well, I might be misremembering, but last time when we got a when we got a tour, they were like, you know, people come in and they say, "Oh, I want to look at this part of the sky." You know, and there was some somebody who could >> we say yes to that. That would be great. >> I think I think you do, but maybe I don't know. Maybe >> Yeah. Yeah, I know. Absolutely, we should. Um
25:22and there, you know, there are definitely things in astronomy where people have studied this star for >> Right. >> hundreds of years and and and this is a hundred year period where uh especially if it's something significant enough that people are doing that. Yeah, there probably is informa- information in our archive about it. >> Yeah. >> Um >> Definitely. I mean, your archives here are just spectacular. So, um one of the things that you talked about was that, you know, as director, you're not like you're not someone like just pure administration. You're making scientific decisions. Um you were the director of SDSS-IV.
AstronomyAstrophysicsOpen DataCosmology