First Results of the Lick Proper Motion Program

Abstract

Photography of the second epoch of the Lick Proper Motion Program (Wright 1950) was started in 1968. The original plan (Vasilevskis 1954) was modified in several respects. It was decided to carry out a pilot program first, before the start of a full coverage of the sky accessible from Lick. It was also decided to make use of the new lens corrected for yellow light (Vasilevskis 1964), in addition to the blue lens used for the first epoch. The aims of the pilot program were formulated: (1) carry out the necessary error investigations, (2) develop methods and procedures to a stage of routine, (3) derive proper motions of stars measured, and (4) attempt to arrive at some astronomical conclusions based on these motions. The program was limited to 97 fields nearly uniformly distributed over the sky north of -23° all these fields were photographed, measured and reduced, 78 of them contain a sufficient number of galaxies for proper motion reference. This report will be limited to presenting a few results obtained from the first crude analysis of proper motions that became available only a week ago. These results, therefore may change significantly in the process of further analysis.