Determination of the precise positions of faint stars using observations with the Zeiss 400/2000 wide-angle astrograph

A brief description of the Zeiss 400/2000 astrograph of the Zelenchukskaia high-altitude observatory is given, and results of a study of its optical aberrations are presented. Attention is given to a method for the reduction of photographs taken with this astrograph with the aim of determining the precise coordinates of a large number of faint stars and thus generating photographic catalogs of faint stars of the northern and southern sky. A number of photographs of areas of the southern sky have been processed, and it is shown that the accuracy of the determination of the spherical equatorial coordinates of stars by the six-constant technique on single photographs of 3 x 3 deg amounts to + or - 0.20 arcsec with respect to alpha and delta. The accuracy decreases as the field increases. The accuracy of the SAO catalog in the southern ecliptic zone is assessed by a comparison between observed coordinates of lunar craters obtained from large-scale photographs with surrounding stars and calculated coordinates.