Making Visible the First Women in Astronomy in Australia: The Measurers and Computers Employed for the Astrographic Catalogue

Stevenson, Toner

doi:10.1017/pasa.2014.12

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 28 publications

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“…Inspired by Toner Stevenson's article [1] in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 1 regarding women's role in constructing Australia's "Astrographic Catalogue" [3], we identify other big-impact astronomy publications from Australia's past while using this as an opportunity to showcase additional women who contributed to the legacy of Australian astronomy. For example, while in Sydney from 1890 to 1895, Mary Acworth Orr had recognised the need for a smaller catalogue providing the general public with a more informal guide than the "Astrographic Catalogue", and she published just such a book in 1896 [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

Graham

Kenyon

Bull³

et al. 2021

Galaxies

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Radio astronomy commenced in earnest after World War II, with Australia keenly engaged through the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. At this juncture, Australia’s Commonwealth Solar Observatory expanded its portfolio from primarily studying solar phenomena to conducting stellar and extragalactic research. Subsequently, in the 1950s and 1960s, astronomy gradually became taught and researched in Australian universities. However, most scientific publications from this era of growth and discovery have no country of affiliation in their header information, making it hard to find the Australian astronomy articles from this period. In 2014, we used the then-new Astrophysics Data System (ADS) tool Bumblebee to overcome this challenge and track down the Australian-led astronomy papers published during the quarter of a century after World War II, from 1945 until the lunar landing in 1969. This required knowledge of the research centres and facilities operating at the time, which are briefly summarised herein. Based on citation counts—an objective, universally-used measure of scientific impact—we report on the Australian astronomy articles which had the biggest impact. We have identified the top-ten most-cited papers, and thus also their area of research, from five consecutive time-intervals across that blossoming quarter-century of astronomy. Moreover, we have invested a substantial amount of time researching and providing a small tribute to each of the 62 scientists involved, including several trail-blazing women. Furthermore, we provide an extensive list of references and point out many interesting historical connections and anecdotes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

Graham

Kenyon

Bull³

et al. 2021

Galaxies

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‘The border problems of science and philosophy’: Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider and post-World War 2 science in Australian academia and society

Helbig

O’Malley

2022

Hist. Rec. Aust. Sci.

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Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider (1891–1990), a refugee immigrant to Australia in 1938, was a student of Nobel Prize-winning physicists, Einstein, Planck, and von Laue. She combined a background in physics, especially relativity theory, with a philosophical focus on the nature and possibilities of knowledge. As well as working at the University of Sydney to teach science students how to recognise philosophical issues in their subjects, she drove a major outreach programme to regional towns in New South Wales, where she was fêted by her audiences as a highly accomplished science communicator. Her best-known book, published in 1980, examined her interactions with Einstein, Planck, and von Laue by expanding on how all of them understood the relationship between science and philosophy. Rosenthal-Schneider never achieved a great deal of recognition, due in part to the limited opportunities for women of her era, but also due to her insistence on bridging disciplines and engaging in a scientific and philosophical dialogue beyond academia. We will show how Rosenthal-Schneider explored the borderlands of science and philosophy throughout her life, as she argued for the relevance of philosophical questions to practising scientists and non-academic publics in Australia.

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Seen, not measured: Relocating drawing within astronomical observations

Raupach

2020

Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice

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This paper presents a practice-based research project that explores archival material documenting data collection in nineteenth-century astronomy and locates drawing as a point of access into the shift from human- to technology-dominated methods of observation and representation. I focus on two works that use drawing in contrasting ways. First, by adopting marks from handwritten logbooks as a form of drawing that is laser-etched onto mirrors to highlight the under-acknowledged work of women ‘star measurers’. This technique of remediating drawn lines references both the scientific discourse and the social framework that structured the women’s work, and I use a technique of light reflection to illuminate the absence of their identity in previous narratives of this history. The second line of inquiry is based on written descriptions of double stars. Using hand-drawn animation, I have forged a connection between human and machine interpretation and description of astronomical phenomena, to investigate the involvement of multiple authors in this process. These works provide material explorations into the shift between manual labour and machine automation to illuminate the human traces of expression that are embedded into technological processes. I propose that drawing in combination with other media can offer insight into this increasingly entangled and complex relationship for both artistic and scientific discourses.

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Making Visible the First Women in Astronomy in Australia: The Measurers and Computers Employed for the Astrographic Catalogue

Cited by 4 publications

References 28 publications

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

‘The border problems of science and philosophy’: Ilse Rosenthal-Schneider and post-World War 2 science in Australian academia and society

Seen, not measured: Relocating drawing within astronomical observations

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