The New England magazine . capacity. Oneday the professor found certain com-putations, marveled at the precisionand discrimination of her mathemat-ical skill; and a course in astronomy,the development and recognition • offurther gifts, new duties with addi-tional responsibilities, followed, eachin due order. Thus, by such happy chance, asoften directs into its proper channelthe force of an unrealized genius that the world must not lose, was estab-lished in that observatory where herability could be most fully utilizedthis enthusiastic and industrious youngwoman, whom astronomy was yethighly to
The New England magazine . capacity. Oneday the professor found certain com-putations, marveled at the precisionand discrimination of her mathemat-ical skill; and a course in astronomy,the development and recognition • offurther gifts, new duties with addi-tional responsibilities, followed, eachin due order. Thus, by such happy chance, asoften directs into its proper channelthe force of an unrealized genius that the world must not lose, was estab-lished in that observatory where herability could be most fully utilizedthis enthusiastic and industrious youngwoman, whom astronomy was yethighly to honor. Mrs. Flemings posi-tion at Harvard Observatory becamepermanent in 1881. At that time,under the direction of Professor Ed-ward C. Pickering, who had succeededJoseph Winlock in 1877, the work ofthe observatory was divided betweenresearches in photometry, or lightmeasurement, by which the relativebrightness of the stars is determined, 460 NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE 4pv^it^ic fim-uM ft lZr%/£ 0-im^T (f/u4a^ frw^g^ <Hv. AUTOGRAPH TESTIMONIAL BY MRS. FLEMING and measures of their positions withthe meridian circle. But the directorwas also shaping those plans uponwhich the enormous astrophysicallabors of the observatory have hadtheir foundations; while expandingthe scope of the routine work, headapted the mechanical plant of theinstitution to photographic decade was the greatest periodof transition in the history of astron-omy. Since the very earliest knowl-edge of photography the idea ofphotographing the celestial bodies hadbeen ever present with so early as 1840, Dr. J. of New York obtained a fewphotographs of the moon about an inchin diameter, and in 1850 ProfessorG. P. Bond of Harvard, with the helpof Mr. J. A. Whipple, obtained photo-graphic impressions of Vega and Cas- tor. They also secured upon a daguer-reotype plate a picture of the moon,whose exhibition in London inducedWarren de la Rue to take up thesubject of celestial photo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidnewenglandma, bookyear1887
