Measuring astrographic plates

In 1890 the ‘Star Camera’ arrived at Sydney Observatory to take photographs for an international project to photograph the entire heavens so the stars could be measured onto charts and maps. But taking the photographs was only the first part of the process as the resulting photographs each contained, on average, 400 to 500 stars, although some could include as many as 5,000. Over the next seventy years Sydney Observatory employed women to undertake this laborious task. The two women in this photograph, Mary Allen and Ethel Wilcocks, both together measured plates for nine years but were no match for the efforts of Miss Peel who alone measured plates for twenty years.

Photography by Waterford, 1941.
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Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator