by Dava Sobel
Edward and Lizzie Pickering’s paired headstones stand side by side. Hers identifies her as the wife of Edward Charles Pickering and daughter of Jared Sparks. His bears only one word in addition to his dates of birth and death, “Thanatopsis,” the title of the poem about dying by William Cullen Bryant. The stone slab over Williamina Paton Fleming’s grave also bears a solitary word, which describes her as she described herself in life: “Astronomer.”
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INDEX
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location t
o find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
AAS. See American Astronomical Society
AAVSO. See American Association of Variable Star Observers
Abbot, Charles Greeley, 185
absolute magnitude, 127, 277, 282
See also luminosity; period-luminosity relation
Abt, Helmut, 261
Adams, Charles Francis, 238
Adams, Walter Sydney, 139–40
Agassiz, George Russell, 182, 186, 195, 202, 218, 219, 258, 285
Agassiz, Mabel Simpkins, 285
Agassiz Research Fellowship, 218, 226
Agassiz Station, 258
See also Oak Ridge observatory
Algol, 112–13, 294
Allen, Leah, 149
Allen, Mary, 233
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), 149, 171, 189, 258, 277
American Astronomical Society (AAS), 156, 180, 226, 235, 262, 277, 281, 295
See also Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America; Cannon Prize
Ames, Adelaide: background and studies, 197–98, 203, 278, 285
death of, 233–34, 238–39
and IAU, 224
and Miss Payne, 200, 238–39
work of, 198, 203, 217, 219, 233, 285
Andromeda Galaxy (Andromeda Nebula), 160, 204–5, 262
Annals of the Astronomical Observatory at Harvard College, 14, 20, 37, 38, 42, 60, 61, 79, 80, 101–2, 111, 128, 144, 145, 150, 162, 171–72, 181, 212, 251, 273
Annie Jump Cannon Memorial Volume, 247–48, 253, 279
time line of published papers, 273–79
See also Draper Catalogue; Draper Extension; Harvard College Observatory publications; other specific papers