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Antoinette de Vaucouleurs
Born
Antoinette Piétra

(1921-11-14)November 14, 1921
Paris, France
DiedAugust 27, 1987(1987-08-27) (aged 65)
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
InstitutionsUniversity of Texas at Austin

Antoinette de Vaucouleurs (November 14, 1921, Paris, France-August 29, 1987, Austin, Texas, USA} was an internationally respected astronomer who worked in the Astronomy Department of the University of Texas at Austin for 25 years (1961-1986) when few women worked in the field. [1][2] In addition to ongoing collaborations with her husband, Gérard de Vaucouleurs, she carried out her own research in spectroscopy. Her contributions (and Gérard's) were recognized in a festschrift in 1988, entitled The World of Galaxies.[3][4]

Early life and education

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Antoinette Piétra was born on November 14, 1921 in Paris, France. She married Gérard de Vaucouleurs on October 31, 1944.[1][2][5]

Antoinette de Vaucouleurs studied mathematics, physics, and astronomy at the Sorbonne from 1944 to 1948.[1]

Career

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De Vaucouleurs worked as a laboratory spectroscopist at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris from 1948-1949.[1]

From 1950-1951, she acted as a voluntary assistant at the University of London Observatory (ULO)'s Mill Hill Observatory.[1] There she measured spectra from the 24-inch Wilson reflector[6], a gift to the observatory from J. G. Wilson in 1925.[7]

She moved to Canberra, Australia in 1951, where she worked as an assistant to Richard Woolley, director of the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo. During this time, she worked on the spectrophotometry of southern bright stars and of the planet Mars.[1]

In 1957 the De Vaucouleurs were invited to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.[1] In 1958 they moved to the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they remained from 1958-1960.[2][1]

In 1960 the de Vaucouleurs moved to the University of Texas at Austin which was forming a Department of Astronomy. There Antoinette de Vaucouleurs held an official position as a Research Scientist Associate from 1961 to 1986 and was able to work with the McDonald Observatory. She also served on the Chancellor's Council of the University of Texas from 1980 onwards.[2]

In 1962 Antoinette became a naturalized American citizen.[2]

Research

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During her time in Paris, Antoinette de Vaucouleurs discovered new doublets and perturbations in the secondary series of the infrared spectrum of potassium.[2] She and Gérard used the Chalonge microphotometer to study the surface photometry of galaxies, leading to the formulation of De Vaucouleurs's law for the surface brightness of an elliptical galaxy in 1948.[8]

In Australia Antoinette worked first on Greenwich-style spectrophotometric gradients in the continua of southern bright stars and of the planet Mars.[2] She and Gérard were the first to take Harold Johnson's UBV photometric system for classifying stars according to their color and magnitude, and adapt it to the photoelectric-photometry of galaxies.[1] She later published a photometry catalogue of galaxies with Giuseppe Longo (1983).[9]

In 1957 she submitted her work on Spectral Types and Luminosities of B, A and F Southern Stars to the Royal Astronomical Society in London. It was the first quantitative spectral and luminosity classification of the 366 stars of the Morgan-Keenan system. It was considered one of the best classifications for MK types of southern stars.[2][10]

She reportedly noticed variability in the centers of some Seyfert galaxies in 1958, but was dissuaded from following up on the idea by her husband. Her suspicions were later confirmed by the discoveries of others.[6]

She was an active participant in her husband's extragalactic research. Between 1960 and 1978 she helped with the radial velocity surveys done at the McDonald Observatory using the 82 inches (2.1 m) Struve reflector.[1][2] She took over much of the tedious and painstaking work of reducing the data from the observation runs.[4]

She was a partner in her husband's early studies of the dimensions and structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud, including the first quantitative analysis of the spectral composition of a galaxy from its spectrum.[4] They used the strength of its absorption lines to determine the stellar population of the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud.[2][11]

For fifteen years, Antoinette and Gerard de Vaucouleurs compiled and systematized the Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RCBG),[1] one of the major catalogues of galaxies to be published after 1960.[12] It built upon the work of Harlow Shapley and Adelaide Ames in the Shapley-Ames Catalogue of Bright Galaxies and of others. The first Reference Catalogue was published in 1964.[13] It contained 2,599 objects, double the size of the original Shapley-Ames catalogue. The Second Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC2), published by the de Vaucouleurs and Harold G. Corwin, Jr. in 1976, included 4,364 objects and considerably expanded the data provided about them. The Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (RC3) included 23,022 objects, from a database of 73,197 galaxies at Lyons Observatory.[14] In addition, the Southern Galaxy Catalogue (1985) was completed by Harold Corwin with lesser levels of help from Antoinette and Gérard de Vaucouleurs.[15][16] Throughout this work, Antoinette was well known for her attention to and memory for detail and her ability to discover and correct errors.[2]

The de Vaucouleurs are also known for their pioneering work on superclusters.[17][18][8] In 1953, on the basis of their joint work, Gerard put forth the controversial claim that the Milky Way was in fact part of a larger flattened system of galaxies since known as the Local Supercluster, They developed a supergalactic coordinate system based on the orientation of the Local Superclustor and other clusters, which has been used extensively to describe the distribution of nearby galaxies. Antoinette was active in studying galaxy redshift movement.[8]

Antoinette de Vaucouleurs died of Bone-marrow cancer on August 29, 1987. She continued to work until 10 weeks before her death.[1]

Recognition

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The University of Texas at Austin established the Antoinette de Vaucouleurs Memorial Lectureship and Medal to be awarded yearly to "an outstanding astronomer in recognition of a lifetime of dedication to astronomy".[1][19]

Publications

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  • de Vaucouleurs, Gérard; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette (1964). Reference catalogue of bright galaxies being the Harvard survey of galaxies brighter than the 13th magnitude of H. Shapley and A. Ames, revised, corrected and enlarged, with notes, bibliography and appendices. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
  • de Vaucouleurs, Gérard; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; Corwin, Harold G., Jr. (1976). Second reference catalogue of bright galaxies, containing information on 4,364 galaxies with references to papers published between 1964 and 1975. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292755079.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • de Vaucouleurs, Gérard; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; Corwin, Harold G., Jr.; Buta, Ronald J.; Paturel, Georges; Fouque, Pascal (1991). Third reference catalogue of bright galaxies. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0387975498.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Longo, Giuseppe; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; Corwin, Harold G., Jr. (1983). General catalogue of photoelectric magnitudes and colors in the U, B, V system of 3,578 galaxies brighter than the 16-th V-magnitude (1936-1982). Austin: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin. ISBN 9780960379620.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Corwin, Harold G.; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; de Vaucouleurs, Gérard (1985). Southern galaxy catalogue : a catalogue of 5481 galaxies south of declination -17 degrees found on 1.2-m U.K. Schmidt IIIa-J plates. Austin: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin. ISBN 978-0960379637.
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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "In Memoriam: Antoinette de Vaucouleurs". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bash, Frank; Smith, Harlan J.; Craig Wheeler, J. (1 July 1988). "Antoinette de Vaucouleurs". Physics Today. 41 (7): 92–92. doi:10.1063/1.2811515. ISSN 0031-9228. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  3. ^ Graham, Alister; Kenyon, Katherine; Bull, Lochlan; Lokuge Don, Visura; Kuhlmann, Kazuki (31 March 2021). "History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)". Galaxies. 9 (2): 24. doi:10.3390/galaxies9020024.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  4. ^ a b c Corwin, Harold G.; Bottinelli, Lucette (6 December 2012). The World of Galaxies: Proceedings of the Conference “Le Monde des Galaxies” Held 12–14 April 1988 at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris in Honor of Gérard and Antoinette de Vaucouleurs on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4613-9356-6. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  5. ^ Baize, P. (1987). "Antoinette de Vaucouleurs (1921–1987)". L’Astronomie. 101: 566. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  6. ^ a b Burbidge, E. Margaret (September 1994). "Watcher of the Skies". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 32 (1): 1–37. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.32.090194.000245. ISSN 0066-4146. Retrieved 18 February 2022. Cite error: The named reference "Burbidge" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  7. ^ Garstang, R.H. (16 November 2018). "A history of the university of London observatory 1928–1962". UCL Observatory (UCLO). Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  8. ^ a b c Buta, Ronald (1 September 1996). "Gerard Henri de Vaucouleurs (1918–1995)". Bulletin of the AAS. 28 (4). Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  9. ^ Longo, Giuseppe; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette; Corwin, Harold G., Jr. (1983). General catalogue of photoelectric magnitudes and colors in the U, B, V system of 3,578 galaxies brighter than the 16-th V-magnitude (1936-1982). Austin: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin. ISBN 9780960379620.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette (1 August 1957). "Spectral Types and Luminosities of B, A and F Southern Stars". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 117 (4): 449–462. doi:10.1093/mnras/117.4.449. ISSN 0035-8711. Retrieved 23 February 2022.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  11. ^ de Vaucouleurs, Gerard; de Vaucouleurs, Antoinette (1958). "An analysis of the composite spectrum of the Large Magellanic Cloud". The Astronomical Journal. 63: 304. doi:10.1086/107663.
  12. ^ Nilson, Peter. "Catalogues of galaxies: A short survey of their history". Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  13. ^ Whitford, A. E. (September 1986). "A Half-Century of Astronomy". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 24 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.24.090186.000245. ISSN 0066-4146. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
  14. ^ "RC3 - Third Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies". NASA. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  15. ^ Spellman, Kathleen; Madore, Barry F.; Helou, George (April 1989). "Revised coordinates for 373 selected objects in the Southern Galaxy Catalogue". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 101: 360. doi:10.1086/132441. ISSN 0004-6280. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  16. ^ Capaccioli, Massimo; Corwin, Harold G., Jr. (1 August 1989). Gerard And Antoinette De Vaucouleurs: A Life For Astronomy. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-4579-19-3. Retrieved 23 February 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Thompson, Laird A. (10 December 2020). The Discovery of Cosmic Voids. Cambridge University Press. pp. 67–70. ISBN 978-1-108-85848-9. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  18. ^ Salpeter, Edwin E. (October 1993). "Large scale structure and galaxy disks as Lyman-alpha clouds". The Astronomical Journal. 106: 1265. doi:10.1086/116724. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
  19. ^ "The 2004 Antoinette de Vaucouleurs Memorial Lecturer" (PDF). Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics The Australian National University Annual Report 2004. Retrieved 26 February 2022.


Category:1921 births Category:1987 deaths Category:University of Paris alumni Category:French emigrants to the United States Category:University of Texas at Austin faculty Category:Scientists from Paris Category:20th-century American astronomers Category:20th-century French astronomers Category:Women astronomers Category:20th-century women scientists

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