In 1986, we started the Muenster Redshift Project (MRSP) by measuring direct atlas plates as the indispensible counterparts of objective prism plates, used for the determination of redshifts. At this time the red survey was not yet complete and we chose the J-plates for the start. The first 400 square degrees were used to develop scanning techniques and reduction algorithms and to introduce and implement methods in stellar statistics and observational cosmology. The low dispersion objective prism plates (linear reciprocal dispersion of 246 nm/mm at H gamma ) were taken with the UK Schmidt telescope.
Redshift measurements from objective prism plates need a well defined redshift zero point, which induced us to add astrometry to our program. Using plate transformations from direct to objective prism plates, we avoid reference to the very uncertain position of the red spectral cut-off and are able to measure the wavelength zero points without magnitude- and colour-dependent systematic errors. To date more than 120000 galaxy redshifts have been measured in 12 fields and are presently used for cosmological investigations, e.g. studies of structural parameters and the scale of homogeneity in the universe, the value of the Hubble constant, the decelaration parameter and other cosmological quantities.
Astrometry from Schmidt plates also provides us with statistical proper motions in the Milky Way and in neighbouring galaxies. Using for the first epoch ESO QBS plates and for the second epoch ESO Schmidt plates, taken 15 years later, specifically for the project, the absolute proper motion of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) was found to be 0.31mas/yr in right ascension and -0.20mas/yr in declination, in good agreement with results from other ways of approaching the problem. The presently rather large errors of more than 2mas/yr will be lowered, when we have solved the problem of detecting more galaxies for the definition of the inertial reference frame in the very crowded fields of the LMC. Other galaxies of the Local Group are being investigated.