Mary Watson Whitney

Mary Watson Whitney ( born September 11, 1847 in Waltham, Massachusetts, † January 20, 1921 ibid ) was an American astronomer.

Mary Whitney was born 1847 in Waltham, where he attended the public high school ( secondary school). 1863, she graduated from it and joined the Vassar College, where she attended from 1865 advanced courses. She quickly became influenced by the astronomer Maria Mitchell.

After graduating in 1868 Whitney went back to Waltham and took care of her widowed mother and taught at the School of Auburndale, Massachusetts. In 1869, she traveled to Burlington, Iowa, to observe the eclipse with their specially built Alvan Clark telescope. From 1869 to 1870 she attended the lecture by Benjamin Peirce on quaternions at Harvard and listened to him privately about celestial mechanics. In 1872 she received the Master Degree in Vassar, then ( 1873-1876 ) she studied at the ETH Zurich.

In the years 1876 to 1881 she taught at the Waltham High School, before she went back to Vassar to be Maria Mitchell's assistant. 1888, she followed Mitchell on her professorship and the directorship of the observatory in Vassar.

Whitney was considered a very good and effective teacher. Since she had clearly demonstrated that they accomplished great achievements in research and teaching, they could enforce a large-scale research program in Vassar. It dealt primarily with double stars, variables, asteroids, comets, and the improvement of precision measurements on photographic plates. Your students found employments anywhere in the U.S.. 1899 Witney was inducted into the American Astronomical Society.

For health reasons she moved in 1910 from Vassar back in 1921 she died.