Astronomy in Focus, Volume 1, Focus Meeting 2 XXIXth IAU General Assembly, August 2015 Piero Benvenuti, ed. c  International Astronomical Union 2016 doi:10.1017/S174392131600260X BAO Plate Archive digitization, creation of electronic database and its scientific usage A. M. Mickaelian, H. V. Abrahamyan, H. R. Andreasyan, N. M. Azatyan, S. V. Farmanyan, K. S. Gigoyan, M. V. Gyulzadyan, K. G. Khachatryan, A. V. Knyazyan, G. R. Kostandyan, G. A. Mikayelyan, E. H. Nikoghosyan, G. M. Paronyan and A. V. Vardanyan Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Byurakan 0213, Aragatzotn Province, Armenia email: aregmick@yahoo.com Abstract. Astronomical plate archives created on the basis of numerous observations at many observatories are important part of the astronomical heritage. Byurakan Astrophysical Obser- vatory (BAO) plate archive consists of 37,000 photographic plates and films, obtained at 2.6m telescope, 1m and 0.5m Schmidt telescopes and other smaller ones during 1947–1991. In 2002- 2005, the famous Markarian Survey (First Byurakan Survey, FBS) 2000 plates were digitized and the Digitized FBS (DFBS) was created. New science projects have been conducted based on these low-dispersion spectroscopic material. In 2015, we have started a project on the whole BAO Plate Archive digitization, creation of electronic database and its scientific usage. The project will run during 3 years in 2015–2017 and the final result will be an electronic database and online interactive sky map to be used for further research projects. Keywords. telescopes, instrumentation: miscellaneous, methods: data analysis, techniques: im- age processing, techniques: spectroscopic, standards, astronomical data bases: miscellaneous 1. Introduction A project on Digitization of Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO) Plate Archive and creation of BAO Interactive Astronomical Database (shortly BAO Plate Archive project, BAO PAP) has started in 2015. It is aimed at preservation of BAO valuable observational material accumulated during 1947-1991, creation of full Database of all BAO observations, creation of BAO Interactive Sky Map with visualiza- tion of all observations and quick access to the data, development and accomplishment of new research projects based on the existing observational material, and integration of BAO observations into the international databases. A number of BAO young astronomers are involved in this project and it will last 3 years. BAO Plate Archive is one of the largest astronomical archives in the world and is considered to be BAO main observational treasure. Today BAO archive holds some 37,000 astronomical plates, films or other carriers of observational data. 2. BAO telescopes and observing programmes BAO observers worked with a number of BAO telescopes during 1947-1991 and ob- tained several dozens of thousands plates, films and other products. The table gives gen- eral understanding on observations of 10 BAO telescopes that worked on photographic photometry, electrophotometry, slit and objective prism spectroscopy, and polarimetry of many thousands astronomical objects. We give in Table 1 an overview of BAO telescopes 130 https://doi.org/10.1017/S174392131600260X Published online by Cambridge University Press