With this and a companion grant to the Yale Southern Observatory, Inc. Dr. Van Altena will continue with the measurement and analysis of the photographic plates obtained for the Southern Proper Motion (SPM) program at the Yale Southern Observatory at El Leoncito, Argentina. The positions and absolute proper motions of approximately 1000 stars per field will be measured with respect to faint galaxies. A new Yale Zone Catalog of faint star coordinates will be initiated which will provide a network of secondary standards down to the 18th magnitude. The primary use of the SPM proper motions is for research on galactic structure, while the Yale Zone Catalog will provide faint standards for use in determining the coordinates of objects in the very small fields of large reflector telescopes.
