 Description of the plate archive
Use of the archive
Plate catalogue
Plate catalogue (all Schmidt plates)
Catalogue description
Since 1980 photographic plates are regularly taken with the former
Hamburg Schmidt telescope
, which is now located at the
Calar Alto Observatory
/ Spain. The telescope is operated by the
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie
in Heidelberg/Germany, while most of the observations are done by
observers from the
Hamburger Sternwarte
. The regular taking of plates was finished 1997.
One major project in Hamburg is the
Hamburg Quasar Survey
which obtains objective prism and direct plates for the whole northern
sky at galactic latitudes |b| > 20°. These are digitized with an
PDS machine, and are used presently for the search of AGN candidates,
hot stars and optical counterparts for ROSAT X-ray sources.
Each plate has a size of 24*24 cm and a field of view of 5.5*5.5°.
For objective prism work two prisms are available, one with an angle
of 1.7°, yielding a dispersion of 1390 Å/mm at Hgamma and a
second with 4° and 590 Å/mm dispersion. About 20 different filters
can be mounted and spectra can be broadened artificially by moving
the plateholder perpendicular to dispersion.
The present catalogue contains all Schmidt plates available in Hamburg
taken since 1980. Many of them are digitized. These can be identified
by their name, which always begin with the field designation:
"Feld ...".
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Use of the archive |
The plate archive in Hamburg can be used in the following ways:
- Visiting the Hamburg Observatory allows visual inspection of the plates, evaluation of the low-resolution digitized database, and high-resolution scanning of individual objective prism spectra.
- For small samples of objects information contained in the digitized database can be provided by our staff.
- For larger projects we recommend to request for a cooperation with a scientist in Hamburg.
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Catalogue Manual |
The plate catalog provides full documentation of the set-up of the
telescope for each individual plate. The catalog contains the following
information:
1 Platenumber (No)
2 Date of observation (YYYYMMDD)
3/4 Coordinates of the field center (epoch 1950)
5 Integration time (IT) in minutes
6 Emulsion type (EM)
7 Filter (FI)
8 Mode of telescope operation (MO)
9 Widening of the spectra perpendicular to dispersion in micron (WI)
10 Plate quality Q (only for digitized plates)
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Emulsion types (EM) |
21 KODAK 103a-O * 31 KODAK 098-02
22 KODAK 0a-O * 32 KODAK I-N
23 KODAK IIa-O * 33 KODAK Infrared film
24 KODAK 103a-D * 34 KODAK 0a-B
25 KODAK 103a-G * 35 KODAK 103a-J
26 KODAK IIIa-J * 36 KODAK 098-04
27 KODAK 103a-E * 37
28 KODAK 0a-E * 38
29 KODAK 103a-F * 39
30 KODAK IIIa-F * 40
41 * 51
42 * 52
43 KODAK IIa-O ( baked ) * 53
44 * 54
45 * 55
46 KODAK IIIa-J ( baked ) * 56 KODAK 098-04 ( baked )
47 * 57
48 * 58
49 NN = unknown * 59
50 KODAK IIIa-F ( baked ) * 60
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Filter (FI) |
00 no filter
01 UG 1 * 11 OG 1 = OG 530
02 UG 2 * 12 OG 5 = OG 550
03 BG 12 * 13 RG 1 = RG 610
04 GG 13 = GG 385 * 14 RG 2 = RG 630
05 GG 3 = GG 435 * 15 RG 8 = RG 695
06 GG 5 = GG 455 * 16 BG 3
07 GG 7 = GG 475 * 17 UG 5
08 GG 11 * 18 GG 15
09 GG 14 = GG 495 * 19
10 OG 4 = OG 515 * 20 BG 3 + GG 13
29 NN = unknown
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Mode of telescope operation (MO) |
01 no prism / no grating * 06 no prism / with grating
02 4-deg prism / no grating * 07 4-deg prism / with grating
03 1.7-deg prism / no grating * 08 1.7-deg prim / with grating
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Plate quality Q (only for digitized plates) |
A: Excellent plate, FWHM of spectra < 33 micron at the plate center
B: Good plate, FWHM < 40 micron, A-plates with background densitites
>2.0
C: Usable plate, FWHM > 40, A or B-plates with small defects on part of
the plate
D: Partially usable plate, stronger defects which make parts of the
plate unusable
E: Unusable plate
For more information please contact: D. Engels
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