Software Tools for Digitization of Astronomical Photographic Plates

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.

In this paper we present tools for helping the process of digitization of astronomical photographic plates. The requirements of Virtual Observatory presume that any FITS file, which contains a digital image, has to be equipped with a complete header. Wide-Field Plate Database (WFPDB) offers most of the meta-data needed for the creation of FITS header. The header2011 software gives the user an appropriate tool for connecting WFPDB catalogues to digitized plate images. The use of modern scanners sometimes imposes conversion of files from the inner format of the scanner (or driver) into FITS format. The tif2fits software converts VueScan row-tiff format to FITS and also separates plate image and wedge image in case of scanning with grayscale wedge.

This work is supported by the German DFG grant STE: 710/6-1/20.11.2009 and partially by the grants of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Science and Youth DO-02-273/275/2009.