Portal:Stars/Selected biography/10

Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper

Annie Jump Cannon (December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures.

Not long after the work on the Draper Catalog, aiming to map and define all the stars in the sky to photographic magnitude of about 9, began, a disagreement developed as to how to classify the stars. Antonia Maury, who was also Henry Draper's niece, insisted on a complex classification system while Williamina Fleming, who was overseeing the project for Pickering, wanted a much more simple, straightforward approach. Cannon negotiated a compromise. She started by examining the bright southern hemisphere stars. To these stars she applied a third system, a division of stars into the spectral classes O, B, A, F, G, K, M. Her scheme was based on the strength of the Balmer absorption lines. After absorption lines were understood in terms of stellar temperatures her initial classification system was rearranged to avoid having to update star catalogues. The mnemonic of "Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me" has developed as a way to remember stellar classification.

Cannon’s work was “theory-laced” but simplified. Her observation of stars and stellar spectra was extraordinary. Her Henry Draper Catalogue listed nearly 230,000 stars, all the work of a single observer. Cannon also published other catalogues of variable stars, including 300 that she discovered. Her career lasted more than 40 years, during which time women gained acceptance within the scientific community.

Read more...