Williamina Fleming was the founder of the way we chart our stars today, but how come nobody knows of her?
Williamina Paton Steven Fleming (1857-1911) grew up in Dundee, Scotland and married James Orr Fleming at the age of 20. She began working as a teacher before moving to Boston with her husband to further his career. Unfortunately, her husband abandoned her and her child shortly after and Williamina began working as a cleaning technician for Professor Edvard Charles Pickering at Harvard College Observatory.
Famously, Pickering was fed up with his male assistants and had asked his maid, Williamina, to assist him in hist studies. She ended up creating the star chart we still use today, as well as charting over 10,000 more stars. Her organization system was based on the amount of hydrogen that could be observed from the star’s spectra. She labeled the stars with the highest amount A, the second highest B, and so forth.
Her most notable accomplishment was discovering the Horsehead Nebula, attributing to her the title of the first ever ‘computer’ (someone who analyzes information and does astronomical calculations). In her computing days, she was tasked with analyzing the photos taken of the star’s spectrum to categorize them, as well as note anything unusual about them. At the time of her death, Williamina had examined over 200,000 plates of the star’s spectrums.
Her discoveries of gas nebulae, novae, and numerous variable stars contributed to the Henry Draper Catalogue, and earned her a spot as the Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard in 1899. Fleming was placed in charge of numerous other women tasked with performing star counts and classifications.
She has a plaque in Dundee, Scotland to commemorate her accomplishments.
Comments
Post a Comment