Wide-Field Plate Database: 10 years of development
by
Milcho Tsvetkov
Sofia Sky Archive Data Center, IA/SRI, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 72. Tsarigradsko Sosse Blvd. BG-1784, Sofia, Bulgaria
Coauthors: Katya Tsvetkova(1), Konstantin Stavrev(1), Ana Borisova(1), Galin Borisov(1), Damyan Kalaglarsky(2), Rumen Bogdanovski(2), Hristo Lukarski(2) and Svetlin Fotev(2) Svetoslav Christov(3) , Dimitar Lukarski(4). 1) Institute of Astronomy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 72 Tsarigradsko Shosse Blvd. Sofia 1784, Bulgaria; 2) Space Research Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; 3) Chair of Informatics, South-Western, University, Blagoevgrad; 4) Technical University, Sofia.

The development for last 10 years of the Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB, http://www.skyarchive.org) as an initiative of the IAU Working Group on Sky Surveys, hosted by Commission 9, is presented. The new version of the Catalogue of the Wide-Field Plate Archives contains descriptive information, for practically, all existing professional wide-field photographic observations stored in 375 archives around the world. . They contains more than 2 130 000 plates obtained with professional telescopes of 125 observatories world-wide, is now the basic source of information for the archived observations. Currently the WFPDB provides access to the information for more than 30% of the estimated archive total number. Following the requirements of the Centre de Donnes Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) and International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) the WFPDB contains the digitized plate preview images, as well as digitized plate row data using the new generation of the flatbed scanners. The WFPDB team continues to enlarge the database with submitted or retrieved information from the photographic plates which enable the astronomical community to complement their investigations going more than 100 years back in time.

Date received: March 13, 2005