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Posted on May 16, 2021
Telescopes are the most recognizable tool in the astronomer’s toolkit, but equally important are the tools for recording astronomical data. In the 19th century, they included glass photographic plates, which captured snapshots of the night sky through the telescope, and notebooks for recording observations and measurements from the plates.
The 24-inch Bruce Doublet telescope installed in Arequipa, Peru. (Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory)
Left: Glass plate photograph taken in Arequipa in 1925. (Courtesy of Harvard). Right: Cover of Annie Jump Cannon’s notebook featuring ‘Observations in Arequipa.’ (Courtesy of Harvard (Image ID: phaedra2228))
Beginning in 1885, the Harvard College Observatory (now part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) began an ambitious project to survey the entire night sky. Astronomers at Harvard’s central observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its new observatory in Arequipa, Peru, ultimately produced over 500,000 glass plate images of the night sky. Directors of the Harvard College Observatory hired women to study, organize, and care for its immense glass plate collection in Cambridge.