Henrietta Leavitt

Henrietta Leavitt-

She was born on July 4, 1868 and died December 12, 1921.During her career, Leavitt discovered more than 2,400 variable stars, about half of the known total in her day. These stars change from bright to dim and back fairly regularly. Leavitt's work with variable stars led to her most important contribution to the field: the cepheid variable period-luminosity relationship. By intense observation of a certain class of variable star, the cepheids, Leavitt discovered a direct correlation between the time it took a star to go from bright to dim to how bright it actually was. Knowing this relationship helped other astronomers, such as Edwin Hubble, to make their own groundbreaking discoveries.

Leavitt also developed a standard of photographic measurements that was accepted by the International Committee on Photographic Magnitudes in 1913, and called the Harvard Standard. To do this she used 299 plates from 13 telescopes and used logarithmic equations to order stars over 17 magnitudes of brightness. She continued refining and enlarging upon this work throughout her life.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/baleav.html