Brian Skiff wrote: >Has the MISAO group considered starting to make digital scans of >existing emulsion-based surveys? I would think having the films/plates >of Takamizawa, Dahlmark, Collins, et al. scanned and analyzed in the same way >as you have been doing CCD images would also be of great value. The >additional time baseline would provide "instant" lightcurves for huge numbers >of variables now merely detected as a change on two or three dates. Would it be possible to use these modern, normal, CCD cameras and a stand to create such digital scans? Some of these are only cost a few hundred whatevers nowadays, and therefore probably within the budget of most national amateur organisations, for use on loan or as part of projects, as I believe some of the national amateur organisations currently do with telescopes and the like. CDRs with digital images on them would be more practical than emulsion archives in a drawer somewhere, which are occasionally taken out and looked at with a disused plate measuring machine that some academic institue or other has handed down [which itself may be kept in a cupboard somewhere else altogether]. A web archive would be even better, but not necessarily feasible for an amateur group. John