Copyright © 1981 by the University of Washington Press

Next Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This atlas owes its existence to a number of organizations and people, and is so much in their debt that I begin the text by acknowledging them. The National Geographic Society generously provided funds to support the preparation of the atlas and to help cover its publication costs. The Kitt Peak National Observatory provided the observing time at its 4-meter telescope, through an assignment to an ``M31 consortium.'' The National Science Foundation, through grant AST 76-17598, partially supported some of the research results that were by-products of the preparation of the atlas. And finally, the University of Washington Press has guided the preparation of the atlas and painstakingly produced it.

Of the individuals who substantially contributed to the completion of this project, A.A. Hoag should be mentioned first, as he organized the M31 consortium; carefully planned the plate-taking, and took many of the plates. William Schoening of KPNO also took many of the plates and supervised the photographic work in Tucson. The prints which form the atlas were painstakingly prepared by David Azose and the drafting occupied the considerable talents of Daris Healy, both at the University of Washington. Most of the real work involved in identifying known objects in M31 was done by Richard Dickson, who spent many months working with the charts, marking the sometimes elusive and faint components. Doug Geisler determined the coordinate grids that are marked on each chart and checked positions of many clusters by comparison with published coordinates, and Robert Kennicutt reduced the massive amount of PDS data from which the isophotes were constructed.

If this atlas of the grand Andromeda Galaxy proves useful to astronomers of the future, the credit should be given to these generous individuals and institutions. If there are deficiencies, on the other hand, the blame is my own.