Scientific Astronomy Glass Negatives.

[Jonathon Carr Brackenbury]

I have acquired 4 large glass negative plates of distant galaxies taken at the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia....Can any one suggest how to get prints from them and is anyone interested in acquiring them. Jonathon Brackenbury.

[John Bradley]

Jonathon, As other have suggested, scanning glass plate negs is relatively effective using a flatbed scanner -  I recently digitised a collection of several hundred such negs. Two minor points to mention. You need a scanner that will scan with transmitted light (most everyday scanners scan with reflected light). I use the Epson Perfection Series and have had years of good service from them. And you will just need to be careful of both the negative and the scanner bed when you place and remove the negative. It is possible to crack the neg if you drop it even a small distance on to the bed and equally it is possible to scratch the scanner bed with a corner of the glass plate neg. I generally place the negs on a sheet of paper when I lay them on the scanner then pull out the paper - then reverse the process to lift them off. Best of luck. Hope you will post them up here when they are done! John Bradley

[pete.boswell]

We would be very happy to digitise the plates for you and we could also be interested in possibly acquiring them from you.

[e-mail]

[Michael Pritchard]

or photographed on a lightbox 

[Kelvin Jouhar]

Depending on the size of the plates, they can easily be scanned on a flat-bed scanner, which will produce a file from which a print can be made.