Cosmos

STAR NOTES

Issue 86

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THE US-BASED STAR NOTES project – to link the notebooks of the “Harvard computers” back to their original glassplate photograph through a unique plate number – is more than halfway complete. So far more than 3300 volunteers have classified more than 175,000 pages and have completed over 20,300 subjects.

In fact, the project is going so well another astronomer has been added to the mix, and deservedly so. Born in a log cabin in Alabama in 1907, Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit, (above, with her notebook from 1935 showing spectra of Betelgeuse and other stars) started as a research assistant at the Harvard College Observator­y (HCO) in 1928. She completed an MA (in 1932) and PHD (1938) in astronomy and remained as a research associate and astronomer at HCO until 1956. She worked until her 1975 retirement at Yale University, and died after a brilliant and lauded life aged 100 in 2007.

To participat­e, visit www.zooniverse.org/ projects/projectpha­edra/star-notes

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