#SpaceSunday
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In the 1880s, the Harvard College Observatory began the world’s largest collection of photographic plates, some taken using the “Great Refractor,” the largest telescope in the U.S. at the time in its possession.
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With 500,000 images of the sky captured on glass, it was the job of women computers to catalogue and analyze this data. Working in a small library adjacent to the observatory, these women worked 6 days a week for 25 cents an hour to analyze the stars using these plates.
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These “Harvard Computers” helped create a pathway to computing, engineering, and space industries for women with their tremendous contributions to astronomy.
