Plate Vault
The Cosmos Captured on Glass
In the basement of the Observatories’ Santa Barbara Street office is the plate vault, home to the second largest collection of astronomical glass plates in the United States. The plate collection consists of over 200,000 glass plate negatives, including spectra, direct object images, and solar plates. These glass plates date from between 1892 and 1994 were created using telescopes at the Kenwood, Mount Wilson, Palomar, and Las Campanas Observatories.
One of our most notable plates, Hubble's Famous M31 VAR! Plate now has its own dedicated page on our site.