Digitizations of both the Quick-V and the POSS E and O plates and ESO-IIIa-F red plates (limiting magnitude is 20 and 22, respectively) are available near on-line manner to local STScI users or any visitor to STScI. Compressed versions of the survey scans are available on a set of 60 CD-ROMs since 1994, while the images from the northern POSS-E (red) plates will be distributed on 40 CD-ROMs in early 1995. In addition to this set of 100 CD-ROMs with a compression factor of 10, another set of 10 CD-ROMs will be produced with a compression factor of 100. This latter one (to be available in 1995) will be useful mainly for educational purposes and for amateurs and will be sold by the ASP. For other optical sky surveys being digitized at STScI see the list by McLean (1994). [Reference: Lasker (1992); Postman (1994); editorial note in PASP 106, 108 (1994).]
The scanning of the first plates of the POSS-II survey has begun at STScI, while the object catalog is being prepared at Caltech (see Weir and Djorgovski 1992, Weir et al. 1994). The proceedings of the IAU Symposium 161, (``Astronomy from Wide-Field Imaging,'' H. T. MacGillivray et al., 1994) provides more information.