Wide-field plate archives stored in the Ukrainian observatories

Abstract

The latest version of the Wide-Field Plate Database Catalogue of Wide-Field Plate Archives (April 2008) contains 43 archives stored at some Ukrainian observatories, namely, at the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Golosiiv, Kyiv), at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (Nauchnyi and Simeiz), at the Kyiv, L’viv, and Odesa University Observatories, and at the Mykolaiv Observatory. About 126000 plates were obtained from 1898 to 2005 in the framework of the following observing programmes: Solar System Bodies Observations, Observations of Variable Stars, Investigations of the Emission Nebulae and Connected Stars, Spectral Classification of the Stars and Determination of the Stellar Absorption in the Direction of the Emission Nebulae, Photographic Survey of the Northern Sky (FON), Investigation of the Kinematics and Structure of the Main Meridian Section of our Galaxy (MEGA), Observation of Selected Reference Stars, Artificial Satellites Observations and other. At the moment the basic information on 12609 plates from 13 plate archives of the Main Astronomical Observatory and Crimean Astrophysical Observatory is included into the Wide-Field Plate Database Catalogue of Wide-Field Plate Indexes (Sofia, Bulgaria). The plate digitization is just started with flatbed scanners. Some illustrations of the potential of the Ukrainian plate archives for future reusage are given and some compiled plate catalogues are presented on the basis of data from the Wide-Field Plate Database.