The Digitized Sky Survey comprises a set of all-sky photographic surveys in E, V, J, R, and N bands conducted with the Palomar and UK Schmidt telescopes. The Catalogs and Surveys Branch (CASB) is digitizing the photographic plates to support HST observing programs but also as a service to the astronomical community.

The 6.5-degree x 6.5-degree plates are scanned using a modified PDS microdensitometer to a pixel scale of about 1.7 arcseconds per pixel for the POSS, SERC, and Palomar Quick-V surveys, and to about 1.0 arcseconds per pixel for the POSS-II surveys.

Images of any part of the sky may be extracted from the DSS, in either FITS or GIF format.