Historic Spectra of Exotic Objects at your Fingertips: Raking up their Past

Abstract

Astronomers possess a heritage of enormous wealth and potential: historic observations detailing the foundations of astrophysics, witnessing the observable universe decades ago, and recording any number of periodic or sporadic phenomena. If those observations were available on-line, what an enormous resource they would constitute for research. But they are not; they are on non-digital photographic plates, and we risk losing all that information for ever unless some measures are taken fairly soon to transfer it digitally to a more accessible medium.