Charlotte Moore Sitterly

Charlotte Emma Moore Sitterly (September 24, 1898 – March 3, 1990) was an American astronomer. She is known for her extensive spectroscopic studies of the Sun and chemical elements. Her data tables are known for their reliability and are still used regularly.

She attended Swarthmore College, where she participated in many extracurricular activities, including ice hockey, student government, glee club, and tutoring. To pay her tuition, Moore was a substitute teacher, one of the few ways she thought she could work her way through college. She wanted to pursue a career outside teaching because "I did not enjoy the teaching that I did from first grade through high school. I succeeded at it, but I didn’t like it; it was too wearing."

Career

On the recommendation of her mathematics professor at Swarthmore, John. Miller and Moore obtained jobs at the Princeton University Observatory, working for Professor Henry Norris Russel as human computers, carrying out calculations needed to determine the position of the Moon from photographic plates. Her research included an effort to classify 2500 stars based on their spectra.

Although she spent five years at Princeton working under Russell, he refused to consider her for a PhD, an unexceptional fact since there were no women in any of Princeton's graduate programs until 1961. Moore said, “I was used to prejudice against women because Princeton was a man's stronghold, and a woman was really out of step there.” Nevertheless, in 1926, Russell left his own name off a paper they worked on together and used hers alone. Her tables of atomic spectra and energy levels, published by NBS, have remained essential references in spectroscopy for decades. While there, she began to research the infrared solar spectrum and atomic energy levels. Sitterly was honored by the Journal of the Optical Society of America by a commemorative issue in 1988.

Personal life

Portrait of Charlotte Moore Sitterly's family in 1902. From left are: (mother) Elizabeth Walton Moore; siblings Frances and Lawrence (standing); Charlotte and Mary (seated), and her father, George Winfield Moore, seated right. While working at Princeton in the 1920s, she met physicist Bancroft W. Sitterly , whom she eventually married on May 30, 1937. Federal Woman's Award (1961) William F. Meggers Award of the Optical Society (1972) Bruce Medal (1990) Service Vice President, American Astronomical Society Vice President, American Association for the Advancement of Science Section D President, Commission on Fundamental Spectroscopic Data, International Astronomical Union Named after her Asteroid 2110 Moore-Sitterly

Works A Multiplet Table of Astrophysical Interest, 1933 The Solar Spectrum (with Harold D. Babcock), 1947 The Masses of the Stars (with Henry Norris Russell), 1940 Ultraviolet Multiplet Table, 1950 Atomic Energy Levels as Derived from the Analyses of Optical Spectra, 1958