Hannah Steele Pettit

Hannah Steele Pettit (November 6, 1886 – September 10, 1961), also known as Hannah Bard Steele Pettit, was an American astronomer who spent a notable amount of her career working as an assistant at the Yerkes Observatory, where she and her husband Edison Pettit jointly published photographs on the corona of a solar eclipse.

Early life and education

Hannah Steele Pettit was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania on November 6, 1886.

Pettit studied at Swarthmore College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in astronomy in 1908 and her M.A. in 1912. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1919, completing her dissertation on "Proper motions and parallaxes of 359 stars in the cluster h Persei."

Career

Following her graduation from Swarthmore College, Pettit worked as an astronomical observer at the school observatory, Sproul Observatory. While working on her doctorate degree, Pettit worked for the Mount Wilson Observatory associated with the Carnegie Institution, and worked there for the remainder of her career. She participated in a number of expeditions to observe solar eclipses during her career. The first expedition, in 1918, was to Matheson, Colorado. A second expedition was made to Point Loma, New Hampshire in 1923. A few years later, she participated in an expedition to view an eclipse in Honey Lake, New Hampshire in 1930, and a final expedition was taken to Lancaster, New Hampshire in 1932.

During her career, Hannah Steele Pettit was inducted into the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. As part of her work with the society, Pettit reviewed many scholarly articles published by the society.

She died in Los Angeles, California on September 10, 1961 at the age of 74, after suffering a severe stroke

Publications

• Parallaxes of Fifty-Two Stars

Personal life

Hannah married Edison Pettit while working on her Ph.D. dissertation. She had two daughters, Marjorie and Helen. Her eldest daughter was likely born in 1922.