I♥Pluto Festival 2022 | History Captured on Glass: The Pluto Discovery Plates

History Captured on Glass: The Pluto Discovery Plates with, Brian Skiff, Lauren Amundson, Dr. Stephen Levine | Hosted by Dr. Amanda Bosh

Lowell Observatory has a treasure trove of astronomical images on glass photographic plates from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The most famous of these is the pair of plates on which Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930! Walk with us (virtually) through the archive, view the discovery plates, and think about what else might be hidden in these old records of the sky, waiting to be discovered! A new program to scan these plates is underway, making the data accessible to a new generation of scientists.