Cannon, Annie J[ump], and Edward C. Pickering

Second Catalogue of Variable Stars. [In] The Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Volume LV. – Part I [of II].

Cambridge, Mass. Published by the Observatory, 1907. First printing. The Second Catalogue is the later, finalized version of Cannon’s Provisional Catalogue of Variable Stars, which was published by the Harvard Observatory in 1903 and contains about 1,200 stars catalogued by Cannon. The Second Catalogue includes 25,000 stars catalogued by Cannon, plus the 15,000 stars catalogued by Edward C. Pickering before Cannon took over the project. Maxima and Minima of Variable Stars of Long Period supplements and expands upon the Second Catalogue. Full-page tables throughou. Original light blue printed paper wrappers. Some chipping to edges and spine some smudging to wrappers. Lower wrapper of Part I lost. A bit of faint toning to margins of leaves. A very good, clean set of publications by one of the most important figures in the development of modern astronomy. [with:] Cannon, Annie J[ump] and Edward C. Pickering. Maxima and Minima of Variable Stars of Long Period. [In] The Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Volume LV. – Part II [of II]. Cambridge, Mass: Published by the Observatory, 1909. Quarto. [4] pp., pp. 99-291. Full-page tables throughout. Quarto. 6] pp., pp. 1-94. Item #16746

Annie Jump Cannon (1863 – 1941) was an astronomer credited with the creation of the Harvard System, a star classification scheme that was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922 and is still in use today. As a member of the Harvard Computers, Cannon worked alongside Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered that that the relationship between the luminosity and period of Cepheid variables can be used to measure the distance between galaxies, and other important astronomers like Williamina Fleming, Florence Cushman, and Antonia Maury. Both during and after her employment at Harvard, Cannon manually classified about 350,000 stars and discovered five novas, a binary star system, and hundreds of variable stars. Cannon was also a suffragist, an advocate for higher education for women, a member of the National Women’s Party, and the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from Oxford University.

Also see A Provisional Catalogue of Variable Stars (The Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, v. 48, no. 3, 1903).

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