Forums / The Science / Photometry / Reporting reductions of historic plates
Reporting reductions of historic plates
Hi I have been experimenting with reducing scanned historic photographic plates lately, and I guess at some point I will want to report the reduced data to the AAVSO DB. But how should that be done? I think it would be more than wierd if my observer code would be next to a measurement that was done in (say) 1904.... Some credit must be given to the original observer, and the observatory and plate Id somehow should be encoded in the limited size of the comment field. But how exactly? Any suggestions? CS HB P.S.: I seem to have to limit the audience of this article to one of my groups In order to post it??? Is this a new website feature or a bug?? :-)
Hello Heinz,
AAVSO headquarters has a system in place to process archival observations of this kind -- they can't currently be submitted through the CS or AAVSO data submission interfaces. Contact me privately via email (matthewt@aavso.org) so that we can make arrangements.
Regarding your question about credit, if you are measuring plates then you should be credited as the observer regardless of who took the plate. That is how the AAVSO has handled observations from (for example) the Harvard Plate Stacks in the past. The only time that we credit the original observer is if they have already measured the magnitudes and you are digitizing or keypunching their measurements from a publication. In that case we credit the original observer but we separately credit the digitizer for making the data available.
Clear skies,
Matthew
Hi Heinz,
I'll send Matt / Arne an email to ask them about this.
As for the second question, it's a bug that limits who can comment on the post. I've asked someone to look into it, but evidently this hasn't been done. I'll ask again.
Thanks for your inquiry,
Brian