DASCH: Digitizing the Astronomical Plates at Harvard - by Steve Lieber

This talk is the result of a chance encounter at the Stellafane Convention. Stephen Lieber met Ed Loss, who at the time was involved with the Harvard Observatory. Harvard has the largest collection of astronomical photographic plates in the world. Loss was working on a project to digitize the images and make them available on the Web.

Loss provided so much information that Lieber was able to write a talk on this ongoing project. He presented this to ASLI 2009, at Stellafane, and elsewhere. Lieber also wrote an article that appeared in the March 2010 Sky and Telescope. Editor in Chief Robert Naeye stated that this was one of the best researched articles that he ever published.

The project was completed in 2024. This talk is an update of the original. It includes information on how the digitizing progressed and problems they encountered. It will also review was has been learned so far from the scans.