Star Notes

Star Notes

Star Notes

Project PHaEDRA is an initiative by the Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. PHaEDRA stands for Preserving Harvard’s Early Data and Research in Astronomy. The goal of the project is to catalog, digitize, transcribe, and create metadata for over 2,500 notebooks produced by early 20th century women computers at the Harvard College Observatory. These women made advancements and discoveries in the field of astronomy, many of which are still used today. We hope that this project will make this remarkable set of items accessible in the future. Modern researchers will be able to connect these notebooks with the physical glass plate photographs that the astronomers used to make their discoveries.