Dorrit Hoffleit
Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit (born March 12, 1907 in Florence (Alabama) , † April 9, 2007 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was an American astronomer .
Hoffleit was the daughter of German immigrants. She grew up in Pennsylvania and studied mathematics at Radcliffe College with a bachelor's degree in 1928. Then she was research assistant in astronomy at Harvard University (Harvard College Observatory), where she received her doctorate in 1938. In 1948 she got a permanent job as an astronomer at Harvard. In 1956 she moved to Yale University , where she stayed until her retirement in 1975. At Yale University, she became known as the author of the Bright Star Catalog , which contains information on the 9110 brightest stars in the firmament (stars that are visible to the naked eye). She is also a co-author of the General Catalog of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes , which contains the distances (measured by parallax) of 8112 stars.
She was director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island from 1957 to 1978, where she gave courses for female astronomers during the summer months.
With Harlan J. Smith she discovered the changes in brightness of the first discovered quasar 3C 273. She wrote an autobiography ( Misfortunes and blessings in disguise: the story of my life ). In 1988 she received the George Van Biesbroeck Prize from the American Astronomical Society.
The asteroid (3416) Dorrit is named after her.
source
- John Daintith (Ed.) Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists , CRC Press 2009
Web links
- Publications by D. Hoffleit in the Astrophysics Data System
- V. Trimble : E. Dorrit Hoffleit, 1907-2007. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39 (2007), No. 4, pp. 1067-1069 (obituary, English)
- K. Larsen: An Interview with Dorrit Hoffleit. The Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, Volume 37 (2009), No. 1, pp. 52-69 (interview, English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Smith, Hoffleit, Light variations in the superluminous radio galaxy 3C273 , Nature, Volume 198, 1963, p. 650
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hoffleit, Dorrit |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 12, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Florence, Alabama |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 9, 2007 |
| Place of death | New Haven , Connecticut |