The Harvard Plate Stacks, Center for Astrophysics
Glass Plate Negatives Documenting the Universe
Explore our collection online. We currently have digitized over 428,000 glass plate negatives in the Harvard Plate Stacks collection. You can search these plates and learn about those who used them in the new, more expansive database, StarGlass.
The Harvard Plate Stacks is the Harvard College Observatory's Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection and is the most extensive collection of its kind in the world. The core of the collection was founded with the generous funding of Anna Palmer Draper and the creation of the Henry Draper Memorial collection in 1886. Now, the collection spans over 550,000 glass plate negatives and spectral images, covering both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The Harvard Plate Stacks make up over a century of irreplaceable scientific observations and represents the first full image of the visible Universe. Hundreds of women studied and curated the Harvard Plate Stacks while making discoveries of their own.
Search Our Collection with StarGlass
Access to the world's largest historical images of stars, galaxies, and Space. StarGlass allows you to search the Harvard Plate Stacks collection for glass plate negatives by the date they were made, the astronomical objects they captured, the historic Women Astronomical Computers that used them, and much more.
Women Astronomical Computers at the Observatory
Learn more about the Women Astronomical Computers at the Harvard College Observatory, view an alphabetical list of more than 146 women who we know worked with our collection, and browse detailed biographical information for dozens of these pioneering women.
Support the Harvard Plate Stacks
We need your help to further our mission of expanding access and highlighting the impact of the pioneering Women Astronomical Computers.
Show your support by making a gift online to the Harvard College Observatory Annual Fund.
Williamina Fleming and her team of astronomical computers at the Harvard College Observatory.
Glass Plate B20678
Connect
Installation view of the exhibition 25 Stars: A Temporary Monument for Henrietta Swan Leavitt by Ligia Bouton. Photo credit: Kayleigh MacDonald.
Find Out More
Glass Plate MC27415