A. Grace Cook
Alice Grace Cook (18 February 1877 - 27 May 1958), known as Grace Cook or A. Grace Cook was a British astronomer. She joined the British Astronomical Association in 1911,[1] and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1916,[2] part of the first group of women elected as fellows.[3][4] She was renowned for her work observing meteors, and also observed naked-eye phenomena including the zodiacal light and aurorae. During World War One Cook, with Fiammetta Wilson, headed the British Astronomical Association's Meteor Section. Cook observed comets and Milky Way novae and was among the discoverers of V603 Aquilae, a nova that occurred in 1918.[1] This work earned her the Edward C. Pickering Fellowship from the Maria Mitchell Association in 1920–1921.[5] From 1921 to 1923 Cook was sole director of the British Astronomical Association's Meteor Section. With Joseph Alfred Hardcastle, Cook worked to identify and describe 785 New General Catalogue objects on a series of photographic plates taken by John Franklin-Adams.[6]
Cook lived in Stowmarket, Suffolk.[5] She died in 1958 and was remembered by her colleagues as a skilled and dedicated astronomer.[1]
Further reading
- ‘Death of Alice Grace Cook’, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol. 68, p 302.[7]
- ’Alice Grace Cook: An East Anglian Meteor Observer’, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol. 129, p 29–37.biography
References
- ^ a b c Larsen, Kristine (December 2006). "Shooting Stars: The Women Directors of the Meteor Section of the British Astronomical Association". The Antiquarian Astronomer. 3. Society for the History of Astronomy: 75–82. Bibcode:2006AntAs...3...75L.
- ^ "Royal Astronomical Society meeting report" (PDF).
- ^ Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (2000-03-01). "Obligatory Amateurs: Annie Maunder (1868–1947) and British Women Astronomers at the Dawn of Professional Astronomy". The British Journal for the History of Science. 33 (1): 67–84. Bibcode:2000BrJHS..33...67O. doi:10.1017/s0007087499003878. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4028066.
- ^ Briggs, Helen (2016-02-15). "Watching the heavens: The female pioneers of science". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
- ^ a b Cannon, Annie J. (17 February 1921). "Report of the Astronomical Fellowship Committee". Annual Report of the Maria Mitchell Association. 19: 15–17. Bibcode:1921MMAAR..19...15C. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
- ^ Steinicke. Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139490108.
- ^ Hunter, Alan (1958). "The Ordinary General Meeting of the Association Held on Wednesday, 1958 June 25". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 68 (8). British Astronomical Association: 302. Bibcode:1958JBAA...68..302B. Retrieved 7 November 2015.