Born Ercildoun, Pennsylvania, USA, 24 September 1898
Died Washington, District of Columbia, USA, 3 March 1990
Spectroscopist Charlotte Emma Moore‐Sitterly devoted her professional career to atomic spectroscopy, providing a wealth of vitally needed basic astrophysical data. Moore obtained a BA degree in mathematics from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, USA, in 1920. (She would be awarded an honorary doctorate in 1962.) After graduation, Moore moved to Princeton University Observatory, where she became a computational assistant to Henry Norris Russell , the director. She also attended graduate courses at the university. Thus began a lifelong association with Russell, until his death in 1957, and Moore's work in two broad, largely separate, fields of fundamental astrophysics.
Russell was engaged in the determination of physical properties of binary stars and on the analysis of stellar spectra based on laboratory data. The first centered on the analysis of eclipse light curves and...
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Selected References
Anon. (1988) “Atomic Spectroscopy in the Twentieth Century: A Tribute to Charlotte Moore‐Sitterly on the Occasion of Her Ninetieth Birthday.” Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 5. (A special issue dedicated to Moore; see Bengt Edlén and William C. Martin, “Introduction,” p. 2042; and Karl G. Kessler, “Dr. Charlotte Moore Sitterly and the National Bureau of Standards,” p. 2043.)
Condon, E. U. and G. Shortly (1951). The Theory of Atomic Spectra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garton, W. P. S. and W. C. Martin (1991). “C. M. Sitterly (1898–1990).” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 32: 209–210.
Moore, Charlotte E. (1949–) Atomic Energy Levels as Derived from the Analyses of Optical Spectra. Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards.
——— (1950–1952). An Ultraviolet Multiplet Table. Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards.
——— (1972). A Multiplet Table of Astrophysical Interest. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards.
Moore, C. E., M. G. J. Minnaert, and J. Houtgast (1966). The Solar Spectrum 2935 Å to 8770 Å. Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards.
Roman, Nancy G. (1991). “Charlotte Moore Sitterly.” Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 23: 1492–1494.
Russell, H. N. and C. E. Moore (1940). The Masses of the Stars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
St. John, Charles E. et al. (1928). Revision of Rowland's Preliminary Table of Solar Spectrum Wave‐Lengths. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.
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Shore, S.N. (2007). Moore‐Sitterly, Charlotte Emma. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_976
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