Harvard College Observatory

Harvard College Observatory was established in 1839 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It continues to operate, administering the Cambridge-based Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in cooperation with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. This guide currently focuses on the directorship of Edward Pickering, who led the observatory from 1877 to 1919.

Pickering made sweeping changes to the practice of astronomy at the observatory that had a deep influence across the field. He implemented photographic methods, enabling an extraordinary campaign of daytime measurement and analysis undertaken by a group of women “computers,” who produced an expansive physical record of the night sky. That record, in turn, provided systematic data about stars’ brightness and spectral lines, laying foundations for the maturation and growth of astrophysics.

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Williamina Fleming

FEB 23, 2026

Fleming was a leader among the Harvard computers. This guide covers her life and her discovery of the “Pickering series” of spectral lines, which were later explained by Niels Bohr’s atomic model.

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