The Remarkable Bobbie Vaile

Once in a while something comes across my desktop that piques my curiosity and causes me to look a little deeper. Often, when I take the time to dig, I find gold at the end of the rainbow that makes me glad I did the research.

Yesterday I received an electronic telegram from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams that mentioned a new discovery about a named minor planet. The minor planet's name is (6708) Bobbievaile. After reading the news about Bobbievaile I thought I'd Google Bobbie Vaile to find out just who he was and what he did that was so remarkable they named the 6708th asteroid discovered after him.

Secretly, one of my wishes is to have an asteroid named after me one day. I have several friends and colleagues who have been honored this way, Arne Henden, Janet Mattei, Albert Jones, John Bortle, Hazel McGee, Gary Billings, Bill Dillon, Reinder Bouma, George Comello, Tom Cragg, Rick Huziak, John Percy, Brian Skiff, Ron Zissell to name a few. It would be nice to be immortalized this way, but Bobbie Vaile's story and contributions have raised the bar for inclusion in this exclusive club.

So what did Bobbie Vaile do? Well, first off, he is a she. Dr. Roberta Anne 'Bobbie' Vaile. She was an Australian astrophysicist and senior lecturer in physics on the faculty of the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur. She was also involved with Project Phoenix, a SETI experiment, and influential in establishing the SETI Australia Centre, created in 1995.

Dr. Bobbie Vaile has been described as "a computer-packing scientific evangelist who was convinced that even physics can be fun." In 1995 she was awarded the Unsung Hero of Australian Science Award in recognition of her enthusiastic and often unconventional efforts to make "hard" science easy.

Science communication was also a passion for Bobbie and she impressed everyone with her communication skills in print, radio and television.

Her work is particularly remarkable because, in 1989, at the age of 31, Dr. Vaile learned she had an inoperable brain tumor that affected the communications center of her brain. Bobbie Vaile finally succumbed to cancer in 1996, after a seven year battle.

Minor planet 6708, discovered in 1989 at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales was named Bobbievaile in her honor. The citation reads: "To many colleagues and students Bobbie was a uniquely understanding and close friend, and she remains an inspiration."

As it turns out, the asteroid named for her is also quite remarkable. Yesterday a group of astronomers announced results from photometry taken on Bobbievaile from April 16 to May 3 this year. Their observations reveal that Bobbievaile is in fact a binary asteroid with a period of 24.7 hours. The primary, the largest of the two components, has a rotational period of 8.2 hours. From the lightcurve of the primary, which only has an amplitude of 0.08 magnitudes, they are pretty sure the primary is roughly spherical in shape.

They were also able to observe mutual eclipses and occulations which has helped to determine the ratio of the mean diameters of the two space rocks. They find the primary is roughly twice the size of the secondary. This they were able to determine by timing eclipses with depths 0.31 magnitudes.

A pretty remarkable asteroid named after a very remarkable woman.

Venetia Burney, The Girl Who Named Pluto

Do you know where Pluto got its name? I didn't know until I stumbled on this quite by accident.

Venetia Burney was born July 11, 1918. On March 14, 1930, when she was only 11 years old, Venetia's grandfather had just read an article in The Times about the discovery of a new planet. Venetia recalled some years later what transpired over breakfast that day.

"It was about 8 o�clock and I was having breakfast with my mother and my grandfather, and my grandfather as usual opened the paper, the Times, and in it he read that a new planet had been discovered. He wondered what it should be called. We all wondered. And then I said, �Why not call it Pluto�. And the whole thing stemmed from that."

Her grandfather forwarded the suggestion to astronomer Herbert Hall Turner, who cabled his American colleagues at Lowell Observatory. Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the new planet, liked the name because it started with the initials of Percival Lowell who had initiated the search for Pluto. On May 1, 1930, the name Pluto was formally adopted.

An interesting side note to this story is that her grandfather's brother, Henry Madan, was the person who suggested the names Phobos and Deimos for the moons of Mars in 1878.

She lived long enough to see Pluto demoted to dwarf planet status, and commented in an interview while the debate about the definition of a planet raged on, "At my age, I've been largely indifferent to the debate; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet." She died on April 30,  2009.

The asteroid 6235 Burney was named for her, and The Student Dust Counter, an instrument on board the New Horizons spacecraft, is also named after her.

Now there is a student competition called Naming X that challenges students to come up with the name of the next planet to be discovered. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2010 and winners will be announced April 30.

My suggestion for the next planet, or dwarf planet, is Erebus, who was the son of the Greek god, Chaos, and represents the personification of darkness and shadow. You can steal that and enter it in the contest if you like, with my compliments.

This collage shows the relative sizes of the original three dwarf planets (Pluto, Ceres, and Eris) as compared to Earth. It also shows Pluto's large moon Charon (and its two small moons Nix and Hydra) and Eris's moon Dysnomia to scale.

Images courtesy of NASA, ESA, JPL, and A. Feild (STScI).

Caroline Moore- Astronomer, Singer and An Amazing Kid

Getting to know young people like Caroline Moore gives me hope for the future. Caroline, as you may know, is the youngest person to discover a supernova. I first met Caroline when I interviewed her for a Slacker Astronomy episode last November in Boston. She had been invited by the AAVSO to come and accept an award for her achievement.

Today the Nova Science Now website features Caroline in their online series The Secret Life of Scientists. They did a great job of editing and presenting these pieces, but what really comes through in these bits is Caroline's personality. She has lots of that. I love the 30 seconds video. I'll be saying, "whatever", and laughing for weeks.

Pickering's Women

Today I�m going to introduce you to some of the most famous women in astronomy. They were all employed by the Harvard Observatory, in the late 1800�s to early 1900�s. There were no Apple�s or PCs back then. Instead, human �computers� did all the calculations used in astronomical research. Out of 80 or so women who worked for Harvard during this time, four of them distinguished themselves as astronomers in their own right, in spite of being discouraged at every step by the prejudices of the day.

Harvard College Observatory was founded in 1839. Astronomy was just beginning to be taught as a science in its own right, instead of as an extension of philosophy. Universities were beginning to receive funds for astronomical research, and data was beginning to accumulate faster than it could be analyzed. In 1877 Edward Charles Pickering became the director of the observatory, and it is he who is responsible for opening the doors of astronomy to women.

Although women had been volunteers at the observatory in the past, usually relatives of men on Harvard�s payroll, Pickering convinced the Harvard Corporation to hire women for the tedious work of computing. The women computers at Harvard College Observatory became known as �Pickering�s Harem�. He paid them half what men were paid to do this work, so he was able to afford twice as many workers. This proved to be important because Harvard was about to take on the monumental task of photographing and cataloging the entire sky; the Henry Draper catalog.

Henry Draper, was a wealthy physician, an amateur astronomer, and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He recorded the first stellar spectrum, which he took of Vega in 1872. He took the first photograph of an astronomical nebula, recording the Great Orion Nebula in 1880. He obtained the first wide-angle photograph of a comet�s tail, and the first spectrum of a comet�s head in 1881. Draper invented the slit spectrograph and pushed the state of the art in photography, optics, and telescope clock drives.

His great ambition was to photograph the entire night sky, to create a complete spectral catalog that would be available for astronomical research. He did not realize his dream due to his untimely death at the age of 45. His widow, Anna Mary Palmer, did not let his dream die. She donated money to the Harvard College Observatory to complete this monumental task in honor of her husband.

Williamina Fleming was born in Scotland in 1857. Mina, as her friends and family called her, attended public schools, where at the young age of 14, she began student teaching. Her teaching career lasted six years until 1877, when she married James Orr Fleming. The young couple sailed to America in December 1878 and took up residence in Boston, Massachusetts. A few months later, James abandoned his wife, and his unborn child.

Fleming found herself in a strange country, alone, pregnant, and in need of money to support herself. She found employment as a housekeeper. Her new employer was Edward Charles Pickering, the director of Harvard College Observatory.
Not long after Fleming began working in Pickering�s household, he offered her a position at the observatory. One story abut how this came to be is that Pickering, unsatisfied with the work of a male assistant at the observatory, complained that his housekeeper could do better work. She did do a better job than his previous assistant and in 1881, she became a permanent member of the observatory staff.

Five years later, in 1886, the Harvard College Observatory received funding from Anna Draper to compile her husband�s catalog project. Williamina was responsible for cataloging, indexing, examination, and care of the new photographic plates. The �computers� were responsible for identifying the stars on the plates and then calculating their positions. Twelve years later, the Harvard corporation officially recognized Fleming�s position. In 1898 she was bestowed the title of Curator of Astronomical Photographs, becoming the first woman to receive an appointment of this kind.

It was also her responsibility to catalog the plates so they would be accessible and the data readily available. She devised her own spectral classification system, after discounting the system devised by Father Angelo Secchi as too simplistic to account for the wide variety of stellar spectra. Fleming�s system divided the stars into classes, from A to Q, and was based on the complexity of the spectrum lines and bands and the strength of the spectral lines due to hydrogen. Stars that did not fall neatly within a category were grouped into Q.

In 1890, the first Henry Draper Catalogue was published in the Annals of the Harvard College Observatory. It contained most of the stars visible to the unaided eye, a total of 10,351 stars. Though Fleming was not listed as an author, Pickering did acknowledge her contribution to the work. She was also widely recognized by the astronomical community.

During Fleming�s tenure at Harvard, she discovered many celestial objects, including 10 novae, 94 Wolf-Rayet stars, and 222 long-period variables. She also received many honors and awards, including memberships in the Royal Astronomical Society and the Astronomical Society of Mexico.

Fleming worked at Harvard College Observatory until her death at age 54 in 1911.

Antonia Maury was born in Cold Spring, New York in 1866. Her father was a protestant minister and her mother, Virginia Draper Maury, was Henry Draper�s sister. Maury graduated with honors from Vassar College in 1887 and was a student of Maria Mitchell.

Maury was hired by Pickering in 1888. She was responsible for cataloging stellar spectra for stars in the northern hemisphere. Maury, however, had an interest in theoretical work, something Pickering discouraged in his computers. This strained the relationship between Maury and Pickering, resulting in her intermittent employment during her years at Harvard College Observatory. Dorrit Hoffleit, one of Maury�s colleagues at Harvard College Observatory wrote, �She was one of the most original thinkers of all the women Pickering employed; but instead of encouraging her attempts at interpreting observations, he was only irritated by her independence and departure from assigned and expected routine.�

Maury rearranged Fleming�s spectral scheme to reflect the temperatures of stars. She further refined the sequence by adding another dimension to describe the spectral lines using small case letters. Maury firmly believed that the �c-characteristic� in her system represented a fundamental property of the stars. Other astronomers agreed. In 1905, famed Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung published his work on stellar magnitudes and luminosities. His �red giant� objects turned out to be the same stars Maury had cataloged with the �c-characteristic.� According to Hertzsprung the separation of the c- and ac- stars by Antonia Maury was the most important advancement in stellar classification since Secchi.

Maury did not complete her work at Harvard College Observatory, leaving in 1891 to pursue a position at Gilman School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She returned in 1893 for one year, and again in December 1895 to assist with the final phase in the Draper project. The Henry Draper Catalogue was finally published in 1897.

After the completion of the catalogue, Maury lectured on astronomy to professionals in the field, as well as the public. She co-discovered the first spectroscopic binaries, Mizar in Ursa Major, and Beta Aurigae, and was also the first to calculate their orbits. The famous astronomer, John Herschel called her work on spectroscopic binaries �one of the most notable advances in physical astronomy ever made.�

Maury retired from Harvard College Observatory in 1935. She continued to visit Harvard College Observatory to check on observations of her final project, the enigmatic star, Beta Lyrae, until her death in 1952.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born on July 4, 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Leavitt attended Oberlin College and in 1892 graduated from the Society for the Collegiate Instruction for Women, now known as Radcliffe College. Leavitt�s interest in astronomy began during her senior year in college when she took an astronomy class. She furthered her studies in astronomy with graduate work.

Three years after graduation, she became a volunteer research assistant at Harvard College Observatory. Seven years later, in 1902, Pickering hired her on the permanent staff at $.30 per hour. She was given the position of chief of the photographic photometry department and was responsible for the care of telescopes. Leavitt worked sporadically during her time at Harvard, often sidelined by health problems and family obligations. An illness contracted after her graduation from Radcliffe rendered her increasingly deaf.

Leavitt performed research from the observatory�s photographic plate collection. Using these plates, she was charged with determining the brightness of stars in the images. There was no existing standard for ascertaining stellar magnitudes at the time, so Leavitt devised her own system, called �the north polar sequence�. Recognized by the scientific community as an important standard,  it was adopted by the International Committee on Photographic Magnitudes in 1913.

Another area of research that Leavitt pursued was variable stars. During her lifetime, she discovered over 1,200 variable stars, half the number of all known variables at the time of her death. In 1908, she made her most important discovery while studying Cepheid variables in the Magellanic Clouds. Leavitt determined that there is a relationship between a Cepheid variable's luminosity and its pulsation period. This period-luminosity relationship is very precise, making Cepheids important standard candles and the foundation of the Cosmological Distance Scale.

Leavitt was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Association of University Women, the American Astronomical and Astrophysical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

She died on December 21, 1921 from cancer.

Annie Jump Cannon was born in Dover, Delaware in 1863. Her interest in astronomy grew from excursions with her mother who taught her the constellations. Cannon graduated from Wellesley College in 1884 where she studied physics and astronomy under professor Sara Whiting.

For the next eleven years, Cannon studied music and traveled. It was during this time, after a bout of scarlet fever, that she lost her hearing. Upon the death of her mother, she decided to pursue her interests in astronomy full time and went to Radcliffe College as a �special student� for two years. Edwin Pickering was instrumental in her obtaining this special status. In 1896, she joined the ranks of computers at Harvard College Observatory.

Cannon�s duties included cataloging variable stars and classifying the spectra of stars in the southern hemisphere for the Henry Draper Catalogue project, the counterpart to Maury with the northern hemisphere. In her free time, Cannon poured over the observatory�s photographic plate collection, studying variable stars.

Cannon was recognized as the leading expert in identifying and classifying stars, with incredible accuracy and speed. By the time of her death, she had classified up to 350,000 stars, at a rate of up to 300 per hour.

Cannon refined the spectral classification schemes of her predecessors, Fleming and Maury. She reduced the number of categories and arranged them by temperature, from high to low, leaving us with the familiar OBAFGKM. Cannon used numbers from 1-10 to reflect gradation within each category. Her category scheme was so �user-friendly,� it was officially adopted as the standard in 1910 by the International Astronomical Union. Today, with only minor changes, Cannon�s system is known as the Harvard Spectral Classification.

She took over the duties as Curator of Astronomical Photographs when Fleming died in 1911. Cannon also published several volumes of catalogs, including her �Provisional Catalogue� in 1903, with a revision in 1907 listing 1,957 variable stars and their discoverers, the most complete list of its kind at the time. She also revised the Henry Draper Catalogue down to 8th magnitude, published in sections between 1918 and 1924.

Cannon received six honorary degrees, one from Oxford University, the first given to a woman, and was the first woman to receive the Draper Gold Medal. She also established an award to recognize contributions to astronomy by women. She is one of the founding charter members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

Cannon worked at Harvard College Observatory for 45 years, until her death at age 77.

Janet Mattei

This is a transcript of the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast for October 26, 2010.

Hi, I'm Mike Simonsen of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).

Dedication
Today, October 26th, is my lovely wife�s birthday, and I�m dedicating this episode to her. Like many amateur astronomers, I�ve spent hundreds of nights over the years out under the stars or hunkered down at my computer instead of cuddling on the couch watching Dancing With the Stars or Survivor with my spouse. Not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars I�ve spent over the years on observatories, telescopes, equatorial mounts, eyepieces, filters, CCDs, software, computers and astronomy related travel. Even the house we live in was chosen in large part for its astronomically friendly dark skies.

Now, my job at the AAVSO requires me to travel to Boston every other month for a week or so, and our standard of living has suffered somewhat, because working for a non-profit is, well, not profitable. As if to add insult to injury, the AAVSO�s annual fall meeting is always around this time of year, and more often than not, over the past ten years, I�ve been away on the day of her birthday, sharing my interest in variable star science with my AAVSO friends, instead of celebrating with the most important person in my life. In fact this year, as you are hearing this podcast, Irene and I are spending her birthday in the car, driving to Boston for another fall meeting.

Yes, my wife is an incredible woman. She has not only survived losing her mother at a tender age and breast cancer, she has survived me, and my astronomical obsessions. I would not be the man I am today without her limitless patience, generosity, compassion and love. Whatever lasting contribution to science I leave behind will be in no small part because of the special woman I married.

The desire to contribute something to science is one of the main reasons people join the AAVSO. Long before �Citizen Science� became a fashionable catch phrase, the AAVSO was encouraging and teaching amateur astronomers how to observe and record observations of variable stars. And when I joined in 1998 the Director of the AAVSO was another very special lady I had the privilege of knowing, Janet Mattei.

Janet Mattei
Janet Mattei was born January 2, 1943, in Bodrum, Turkey. After graduating from high school she came to the United States to study at Brandeis University. She graduated in 1965 but still unsure about what she wanted to do with her life, she worked in a hospital for a year and a half, running its cardio-pulmonary laboratory.

In 1967 she returned to Turkey to teach physics and mathematics. Later, she quit teaching and began graduate studies in astronomy. It was during this time she heard about Dorrit Hoffleit's summer program on Nantucket at the Maria Mitchell Observatory.

The program at Maria Mitchell Observatory gave students an opportunity to do real research. Students would be given their own personal star to research and analyze. Then they would give a report on it at the annual meeting of the AAVSO the following October. Dorrit's decision to hire Janet as her assistant changed her life and the history of the AAVSO forever.

In 1969, the AAVSO had been invited by Dorrit to hold their annual fall meeting on Nantucket. Dorrit was away at a symposium in Virginia and had planned to get to Nantucket just before the AAVSO meeting started, but a sudden blanketing fog prevented her from making it to the meeting on time. Dorrit called the observatory when she knew she wasn�t going to make the opening and asked Janet to take charge until she could get there. As it turned out, Dorrit didn�t arrive until just after the final banquet as everyone was hurrying off to Loines observatory to take advantage of the sudden break in the clouds.

The Director
When Margaret Mayal, the AAVSO Director at that time was looking for an assistant a couple years later it was partly due to Dorrit�s recommendation and Janet�s performance at that meeting that Janet landed the job as assistant to the Director of the AAVSO. Less than a year later, Margaret decided to retire as Director, and though there were several qualified candidates, Janet was elected unanimously by the Council in 1973 to become the next Director of the AAVSO. A job she would hold for the next 30 years.

Janet took charge at an exciting time, as technology was beginning to advance at a breathtaking pace. In the late 70�s space-born telescopes became an important tool in astronomers� toolbox, and triggering them to observe targets of opportunity was up to the dedicated observers on the ground monitoring cataclysmic variables and other interesting stars. Now space telescopes like Swift alert amateurs on the ground of Gamma-Ray Bursts so they can do follow-up observations of the GRB afterglows.

In the 80�s Janet decided to digitize all of the AAVSO's data, dating back to before the organization's founding in 1911. In 1986 after decades of outgrowing small rented offices, she established AAVSO�s first permanent headquarters building on Birch Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

By the turn of the century the AAVSO had grown exponentially in its online presence and prestige in the world of variable star science under Janet�s leadership, but none of it ever went to her head. As leader of the largest variable star organization in the world, the author of over 175 peer-reviewed papers on pulsating and cataclysmic variables and the recipient of dozens of prestigious awards, Janet Mattei was not at all what I expected when I first met her in Hyannis in 1999.

Meeting the Legend

There was supposed to be an outdoor courtyard cookout the night before the meeting took place, a time for all the attendees to meet and greet, but the weather was a little on the cold and wet side so we were forced indoors to one of the hotel meeting rooms. My friend and mentor, Gene Hanson, introduced Irene and I to several of the guests and then we took our seats at one of the tables in the corner.

At the door to the meeting room a group of about a dozen people all suddenly tried to squeeze through at once. At the center of the commotion was a short, brown haired, be-spectacled ball of sunshine and energy directing staff, answering questions from the caterer, smiling and laughing with the cadre of members as they made their way across the room. The center of attention would often disappear behind the others due to her height, but there was no question about her stature.

She made her way around the room, stopping at each table, hugging and shaking hands. She seemed to know everyone�s name, and would ask about their families and pets like an aunt who had just visited a month ago. When she made it to our table Gene introduced Irene and I as newcomers and Janet immediately sat down at our table.

She stayed and talked with us for over a half an hour, asking questions and getting to know all about this new guy from Michigan and his wife. She was warm, approachable, smart and funny. When she finally excused herself from our table Gene turned to me and said, �Do you know how special that was? The Director just sat down and chatted with you for a half an hour!�

All I knew at that point was that I would walk through fire for that woman. Hearing her words and seeing her smile in my mind was warm comfort on many a cold night at the telescope.

I realized later how special that evening was when I finally understood how hard Janet Mattei worked every day of her life, practically single-handedly breathing life into an ever growing organization, nurturing it and its members like a gardener tending her garden. The organization bloomed full into the Internet age with a sophisticated website, online tools to submit and analyze data, real-time email alerts of stellar activity, observing campaigns in support of space telescopes, the development of the High Energy Network to follow GRB afterglows and the advancement of amateur observing capabilities with CCDs.

The Future
She led us all into the 21st century and pointed the way to the future, even as she lay in the hospital fighting leukemia.

"The AAVSO is made up of remarkable, dedicated amateur astronomers," Janet said. "The camaraderie is truly special and unique. I feel that the future holds even more exciting things as more observers extend their observations to fainter targets with CCDs, as more variables are discovered by professional all sky surveys, and as more data become available via the Internet. It's easy to get distracted in view of so many options that we have today. The challenge is to think big, to have a vision, and to move toward that vision."

Her vision wasn�t just about the science. She knew that the people who participate in science are truly our most valuable resource.

Janet lost her battle with leukemia in 2004, but she won the hearts and minds of hundreds of amateur and professional astronomers everywhere in her thirty years of service to the scientific community. Soon I will be back in Cambridge, among my AAVSO friends, and Janet will be there with us as we celebrate her vision and cherish her inspiration. From all of us to you, thank you, Janet.

To my wife on her special day, thank you for your understanding and generosity.

And from me to you, thank you until the next time.