Harvard College Observatory
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How Harvard's human computers helped invent modern astronomy
The Harvard College Observatory (now the Center for Astrophysics) in Cambridge, Massachusetts has long been a bastion of astronomical research, its history stretching back to the center's founding in 1839. But for the first forty years of its existence, the HCO was quite literally an old boys club. While amateur female astronomers helped fund and even construct the observatory's telescopes, "it wasn't really seen as proper to allow them out on the roof, in the night, on their own, to actually use instruments," Daina Bouquin, Head Librarian of the Wolbach Library at the Center for Astrophysics and lead of the PHaEDRA project, told Engadget.
