Williamina Fleming
Up first is Williamina Fleming. I remember learning of Fleming during my studies of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram in preparation for the Science Olympiad while I was in high school. Her story has stuck with me ever since.
A native of Scotland, Fleming emigrated to the United States in the late 1800's and was brought on to work at the Harvard Observatory by Edward Charles Pickering. Although initially hired for clerical work, she eventually began classifying stars by their spectral lines. [Side note here: each star emits and absorbs different wavelengths of light depending on what elements the star is composed of. Each of these elements in turn has its own unique pattern of spectral lines. Using these spectral patterns, astronomers can determine what a star is made of].
Because of the influx of data, Pickering, who was the Harvard Observatory director at the time, had to hire additional people to assist Fleming. These individuals happened to all be women and were known as "computers." Pickering had found that keeping up with the analysis of the growing mound of data was painstaking work that male assistants were having difficulties with (hence the hiring of the women computers). Among these Harvard computers was Annie Jump Cannon who came up with the spectral classification scheme still in use today. But more on her in the next post!
Fleming published her findings in 1890 in the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra. She had classified 10,351 stars into seventeen categories labeled A to Q. The ordering of the stars depended on the pattern of the spectral lines, with stars classified as A having the strongest hydrogen lines, B the second strongest, and so on. During her career, Fleming discovered 59 nebulae, 10 novae, and more than 300 variable stars, along with the now iconic Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion.
A native of Scotland, Fleming emigrated to the United States in the late 1800's and was brought on to work at the Harvard Observatory by Edward Charles Pickering. Although initially hired for clerical work, she eventually began classifying stars by their spectral lines. [Side note here: each star emits and absorbs different wavelengths of light depending on what elements the star is composed of. Each of these elements in turn has its own unique pattern of spectral lines. Using these spectral patterns, astronomers can determine what a star is made of].
Because of the influx of data, Pickering, who was the Harvard Observatory director at the time, had to hire additional people to assist Fleming. These individuals happened to all be women and were known as "computers." Pickering had found that keeping up with the analysis of the growing mound of data was painstaking work that male assistants were having difficulties with (hence the hiring of the women computers). Among these Harvard computers was Annie Jump Cannon who came up with the spectral classification scheme still in use today. But more on her in the next post!
Fleming published her findings in 1890 in the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra. She had classified 10,351 stars into seventeen categories labeled A to Q. The ordering of the stars depended on the pattern of the spectral lines, with stars classified as A having the strongest hydrogen lines, B the second strongest, and so on. During her career, Fleming discovered 59 nebulae, 10 novae, and more than 300 variable stars, along with the now iconic Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion.
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| Fleming stands in center, among her Harvard Observatory “computers.” Edward Pickering stands at far left. Image courtesy of the Harvard University Archives/HUV 1210 (9-4) |
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