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Pioneering Women in the Spectral Classification of Stars

Abstract.

Spectra reveal more about the constitution of stars than can be ascertained by any other means. About 1867 Angelo Secchi classified stellar spectra into five distinct categories. No significant improvements in his system could be made until the advent of dry-plate photography. Then both Henry Draper in New York and Edward C. Pickering at Harvard began taking hundreds of spectrum plates. After Draper's death in 1882, his widow endowed The Henry Draper Memorial at Harvard for the analysis of stellar spectra. Pickering then employed mainly women to help him devise a more detailed system of classification than Secchi's. Ultimately, the most appreciated lady became the one who dutifully carried out the routine work of classifying exactly as she was told, while another slowly made independent new discoveries that Pickering would not accept even after other astronomers proved them to be highly significant.

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ID="*"E. Dorrit Hoffleit, age 95, received her Ph.D. degree at Radcliffe College in 1938, was Director of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Observatory from 1957 to 1978, and is Senior Research Associate, Retired, in the Department of Astronomy at Yale University.

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Hoffleit, E. Pioneering Women in the Spectral Classification of Stars. Phys. perspect. 4, 370–398 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s000160200001

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s000160200001

  • Key words. Stellar spectra; HD system; MK system; stellar magnitude; Annie J. Cannon; Henry Draper; Anna Palmer Draper; Williamina Payton Fleming; Ejnar Hertzsprung; Antonia C. DeP. P. Maury; Edward C. Pickering.