Stellar Atmospheres: a Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars

by Cecilia H. Payne

$3,500 · Offered by Sophia Rare Books · No longer available

First edition

Cambridge, MA: The Observatory, 1925. / First edition, rare, of Cecilia Payne's Harvard doctoral thesis, famously described by Otto Struve as “undoubtedly the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.” Issued as No. 1 of the Harvard Observatory Monograph series in 1925, it was the first sustained application of the new quantum theory of atomic structure to the spectra of stars and contained, in Part III, the first published recognition

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