Astrophotographic plates (Film sheets, really...)

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Hi All,

Just thought I'd share some good fortune I had recently. One of the rarer perks of working in a physics department is that once every now and then, *someone A* has a clear out of *some stuff* which, while old hat for said *someone A*, is really rather interesting for *large subset of people B* :D. In this instance, about 2000 - 3000 so called 'brightness map' astronomical photographs are being given away. These are, I suppose, the equivalent of a cartographer taking images from a plane for future reference. More specifically, they are brightness reference images, taken with specific wavelength bandpass filters, of the night sky that astronomers and astrophysicists can later refer to for brightness and positional information about a given body/target under research.

These have now all been digitised, and as such, the original plates are no longer required. Most are being given away to artists and other interested parties, but I seized the chance to have a nose through and take some interesting ones. Most are just a pattern of tiny dots (the distant stars and galaxies in that specific sector (field of view) that are too far away to resolve detail for), but others contain detailed images of galaxies and nebulae.

My plan is to take the 12 or so that I have chosen and scan them in so that, at the very least, you guys might be interested (seeing as they were taken on film.... HUGE bits of film) in seeing them. I also don't want to deface the film sheets themselves, so I'll need to come up with an imaginative way to scan them. Anyway, for now I've only got this phone photo of a whole sheet against my monitors with notepad up as a white background, but it gives you an idea of the scale. I'll try and post up relevant information in future as well. :)
 

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They are 16"x16" sheets :D

I should point out that I'm not actually an astrophysicist, I'm a semiconductor laser physicist, but I definitely find this sort of thing really rather fascinating.
 
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:agree: Very interested to see the scans mate, I'm a very big fan of astro photography and I still find it amazing that we can take pictures of a galaxy far, far away... mmm that sounds vaguely familiar :thinking:
 
I see you are a semiconductor laser physicist, when do you get to be a fullconductor physicist? :D
 
Very nice @Woodsy! It's always cool seeing science on film.

Those films are too big even for our biggest scanner!
 
:agree: Very interested to see the scans mate, I'm a very big fan of astro photography and I still find it amazing that we can take pictures of a galaxy far, far away... mmm that sounds vaguely familiar :thinking:

I can't guarantee it'll be a quick turn around. As said, I don't actually have a way of scanning these currently... Not without cutting them up, anyway.

I see you are a semiconductor laser physicist, when do you get to be a fullconductor physicist? :D

You're such a tart :D

Very nice @Woodsy! It's always cool seeing science on film.

Those films are too big even for our biggest scanner!

Shame :/ I'll probably just have to rest them in my V700 without the film holdersand hope that they come out in focus. Otherwise I'll have to figure out the correct height above the glass bed and make some custom spacers.

The other thing that I was thinking about also is, what is the ISO likely to be for the film used? It doesn't state on the frames. Something to investigate I think. Initial guess would be that it will have to be fairly high to shorten the exposure time, but not so high as to diminish the resolving capabilities.
 
I see you are a semiconductor laser physicist, when do you get to be a fullconductor physicist? :D

When I repair something electronic, I often tell the owner that one or more of the semiconductors has upgraded itself to full conductor status. i.e. blown up and is now a short circuit.


Steve.
 
I see you are a semiconductor laser physicist, when do you get to be a fullconductor physicist? :D

I used to be a full conductor..ding ding..next stop the camera shop..
 
Shame :/ I'll probably just have to rest them in my V700 without the film holdersand hope that they come out in focus. Otherwise I'll have to figure out the correct height above the glass bed and make some custom spacers.

The other thing that I was thinking about also is, what is the ISO likely to be for the film used? It doesn't state on the frames. Something to investigate I think. Initial guess would be that it will have to be fairly high to shorten the exposure time, but not so high as to diminish the resolving capabilities.

We can scan A3 in the flatbed, so it might be possible depending on the size of the rebate around the image...

As the image you have up is a reproduction of one of the original films, it may be taken on something like Kodak Tech Pan, it's also possible that the original may have used Tech Pan as well!
 
I don't envy you trying to decide which are stars and which are dust spots in Lightroom. :D

Galaxies as well! Some of those tiny, almost point-source-like spots are entire galaxies. Bakes my noodle. But yes, some proper cleaning before scanning will make life easier for sure. That being said, I may just not bother cloning at all tbh...
 
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