Building the Pipeline to DASCH for Temporal Surveys

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。乔纳森·格林德利将继续努力，从天文成像的前数字时代恢复信息。在之前的一次获奖中，他的团队展示了一种高速扫描仪系统，可以快速将记录在玻璃板上的天文图像数字化到高光度精度。他们的机器将使从哈佛到天空世纪的全数字访问(DASCH)项目成为可能，并使最终数字保存哈佛学院天文台的500,000个盘子成为可能。DASCH项目将打开长时间尺度(从几个月到100年)的时间变化的天文窗口，从目前存在的、但无法访问和几乎没有挖掘的数据。根据这项合同，Grindlay博士将完成减少和分析Dasch数据所需的广泛软件的开发。测光和天体测量例行程序处于开发的高级阶段，但需要进一步的工作才能使其完全可靠。在这一软件开发期间，将开展两个科学项目：银河系隆起的时间调查和选定的一组类星体。为进行这两个示范项目，该小组将扫描和数字化约1万个盘子(占总数的2%)。正如以前对时间变异性的研究一样，预计在时间上打开一扇很大的窗将揭示新的现象。该项目旨在提高公众意识，宇宙不是静止的，进化和变化是司空见惯的。该小组还将开发一个公共网站，公众和天文学社区将完全可以访问该网站。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Dr. Jonathan Grindlay will continue his efforts to recover information from the pre-digital era of astronomical imaging. Under a previous award, his group has demonstrated a high speed scanner system that can quickly digitize astronomical images recorded on glass plates to high photometric accuracy. Their machine will enable the full Digital Access to a Sky Century from Harvard (DASCH) project, and makes possible the eventual digital preservation of the 500,000 plates of the Harvard College Observatory. The DASCH project will open the astronomical window of time variability on long timescales (from months to 100 years) from currently existing, but inaccessible and barely-mined data. Under this award, Dr. Grindlay will finish development of the extensive software needed to reduce and analyze DASCH data. The photometry and astrometry routines are in advanced stages of development, but further work is needed to make them fully robust. Two science projects will be carried out during this software development: temporal surveys of the galactic bulge and of a selected set of quasars. To conduct the two demonstration projects, this group will scan and digitize about 10,000 plates (2% of the total). As in previous studies of time-variability, it is expected that opening a wide window in time will reveal new phenomena. The project aims to increase public awareness that the universe is not static, and evolution and change are common. The group will also develop a public website that will be fully accessible to the public and astronomical community.