The Legacy Mosaic Data Rescue Project

In the mid-1990s, telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) made the significant transition to archiving digital observational data. At that time, desktop computers could store about 1 Gigabyte, or about 1000 times less than what a modern smartphone can now store. To meet the storage needs of data-intensive astronomy at that time, magnetic tape was the most cost-effective medium.