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Are century-old, original images of the cosmos worth saving in an era of digitized astronomy?

A century s worth of astronomical photographic plates have revealed a slew of new variable stars, many of which alter on timescales and in ways never before seen.

In the late 19th century, astronomers developed the technique of capturing telescopic images of stars and galaxies on glass photographic plates. This allowed them to study the night sky in detail. Over 500,000 glass plate images taken from 1885 to 1992...

It is now feasible to design and build a high speed scanner system that can digitize astronomical images recorded on glass plates (8 x 10 in) to high photometric accuracy in under 30 sec. This makes possible the digital preservation of large volumes of...

"A portrait of trailblazing astronomer Henrietta Leavitt and an illustrated exploration of the power of attention in scientific observation, artistic creation, and the making of meaning. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a diameter of about 100,000 light...

Museum astrophysicists are searching through early photographs of the night sky and, with the help of high school students, helping to digitize them along the way. For more about astronomical instrumentation through the ages, head over to the episode...