Astronomical and non-astronomical uses of the COSMOS machine

R. J. Dodd, I Dalton

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Each sky-limited photographic plate taken with the U.K. 1.2 metre Schmidt telescope records about a million star and galaxy images. It is not feasible to measure these plates using manual machines, and this led to the development of COSMOS - an automatic machine capable of finding and measuring the Co-Ordinates, Sizes, Magnitudes, Orientations and Shapes of all the images on a single plate in less than a day. Information obtained from these measurements enables computer discrimination between star and galaxy images and hence quantitative studies of the properties and distributions of the two kinds of objects to be carried out. However, COSMOS is not restricted solely to astronomical problems and it has been used in the fields of topography and image restoration and enhancement. © 1980 D. Reidel Publishing Co.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)319-324
Number of pages6
JournalAstrophysics and Space Science
Volume69
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 1980

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