Photographic observations of visual double stars at Pulkovo: Digitization, measurement, and calibration

We present the results of determining the relative positions of 359 pairs of stars. More than 6000 photographic plates were obtained in 1960–2007 at the 26-inch refractor of the Pulkovo Observatory. The plates have been digitized with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital camera and a long-focus Jupiter 21M lens; the scalewas 21 μ m/pixel. Themeasurements have been calibrated using a template digitized with the Belgian high-precision ROB Digitizer. The results have been thoroughly investigated for systematic errors. We have studied the scale of the 26-inch refractor and revealed its temperature and time dependences. The application of a new digitization, measurement, and calibration technique has allowed the accuracy to be increased compared to the past measurements. The single-exposure measurement accuracy is within the range from 2 to 70 mas, on average, 28 mas in both coordinates. The errors of the yearly mean positions are, on average, 8.7 mas in the angular separation and 0.05◦. in the position angle.