Florence Cushman facts for kids
Florence Cushman (born 1860, died 1940) was an American astronomer. She was very good at studying and classifying stars at the Harvard College Observatory. She played a big part in creating the famous Henry Draper Catalogue, which lists many stars.
About Florence Cushman
Florence was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1860. She finished high school in 1877. In 1888, she started working at the Harvard College Observatory. She was one of the "Harvard Computers". These were skilled women who helped astronomers by doing complex calculations and analyzing data.
Florence worked under Edward Charles Pickering and later under Annie Jump Cannon. Her work helped classify stars for the Henry Draper Catalogue from 1918 to 1934. She continued working at the Observatory until 1937 and passed away in 1940, at 80 years old.
What Did Florence Cushman Do at Harvard?
Florence Cushman worked at the Harvard College Observatory for almost 50 years, from 1888 to 1937. She used a special method called the objective prism to study and list the light patterns (called optical spectra) from hundreds of thousands of stars.
In the 1800s, new photography techniques allowed astronomers to study the night sky in much more detail. Male astronomers would work at night, taking pictures of stars on glass plates. During the day, women like Florence would analyze these pictures. They would measure the brightness of stars and organize their findings.
Florence is known for figuring out the positions and brightness of stars in the 1918 version of the Henry Draper Catalogue. This book listed about 222,000 stars. Edward Pickering, who led the Observatory, once said that if the "Harvard Computers" wasted even one minute on each measurement, it would delay the whole project by two years. This shows how important and efficient their work was.
See also
In Spanish: Florence Cushman para niños
