Mrs. Fleming's "Q" Stars (Abstract)

Volume 38 number 1 (2010)

Barbara L. Welther

Abstract

(Abstract only) At Harvard in the 1890s, Williamina Fleming developed an alphabetical classification system for the photographic spectra of “normal” stars. In her system she used the letter “Q” for stars whose line patterns didn’t resemble the prototypes. After she published a preliminary catalog of spectral types for more than 10,000 stars, she studied the “peculiar” stars and published several papers on them in The Harvard Circulars. This paper will present the development of her classification system and her discovery of many variable stars and novae by the peculiarities in their photographic spectra.