TF PDPP Business Meeting, Thursday August 17 (Chair: E. Griffin)

In its 3-hour meeting the PDPP Task Force first received reports on

(a) digitizing plates from the USNO plate archive of Natural Satellite

observations,

(b) calibration tests of the USNO StarScan instrument and commercial scanners,

(c) digitizing the Bordeaux Carte du Ciel plates and generating astrometric

catalogues and

(d) the new Harvard rapid digitizer, including a video of the instrument in

operation. 

The meeting was informed about the latest version of the TF's Newsletter,

SCAN-IT #4, now available at the PDPP Website

(http://www.lizardhollow.net/PDPP.htm). 

It then accepted a proposed amalgamation with the "Astrographic Catalogue &

Carte due Ciel" WG of Commission 8, such that the PDPP absorbs new members who

are not already members of both groups.

The rest of the meeting was given over to a proposal from the Chair for a

cooperative effort to digitize plates in Europe on a major scale.  The TF has

been encouraging efforts to digitize plates wherever feasible, and while there

have been a few noble individual programmes, continuity of funding has remained

a serious obstacle.  The TF is therefore proposing a comprehensive

collaboration involving as many European observatories as possible, offering

storage and scanning facilities at a central site and seeking funding from the

EU.  Such a scheme was planned in 2000 in Brussels, but a prototype rapid

scanner had first to be constructed to demonstrate proof-of-concept.  The

meeting agreed that the timing for a major collaboration is now appropriate,

and encouraging signals for the proposal were indicated by potential

participating observatories.

Elizabeth Griffin (Chair)