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Session 54 - Ground and Instrumentation Techniques and Catalogs.
Display session, Wednesday, June 12
Tripp Commons,
Digitization of the approximately 3600 plates of the second epoch surveys is nearly 50% complete, and preliminary data for over 400 R plates are available via the WWW.
The current scanning program consists of 1\arcsec (15 micron) full plate scans of all three colors of the Palomar Sky Survey II and the new red surveys from the UK Schmidt. Project completion is expected in mid-1998, at which time publication of the image (pixel) data, probably on CD-ROM in lightly compressed form, will begin. Meanwhile, community access to the primary archive of preliminary (lightly compressed) data for the red plates is provided on the WWW \ http://stdatu.stsci.edu/dss/dss_form.html \. Complete sets of those data are also located at CADC and ESO, and negotiations regarding additional sites are well-advanced.
Construction of the Second Guide Star Catalog (GSC--II; Lasker et al in ESA-SP 379) from the new scans, together with the GSC--I archival scans, is a collaborative effort with the Italian Council for Research in Astronomy (CRA). Priority is being given to a circa 1993 epoch, R band, all-sky catalog, to V=18; colors and proper motions are being produced for selected science fields at OATo. The Objectivity object-oriented database, which is also being used by the SDSS, has been selected for the GSC--II, and catalog design studies are underway.
Calibration activities are proceeding well on several fronts. Stellar photometry for the GSPC--II to V=18 is now approaching completion. Astrometry that removes plate-based and magnitude-dependent errors is anticipated from collaborators at ARI/AIP (Germany). A new plate-independent classifier, which operates on spike, texture, and second moment features, has been successfully prototyped, and integration into the processing pipeline is in progress.
Critical support to this project is provided by NASA, CADC, CRA, ESA SA, and ESO.
