Brodskaya Emma Semenovna General data:
31.03.1913 - 19.02.2002
Place of birth: Yablun village, Belgorod province, Russian Empire (now Bryansk region, Russian Federation)
Studied in: Leningrad State University (since 1991 St. Petersburg State University) (1939);
Key interests: history of astronomy, variable stars, Galaxy structure. PhD Thesis: Electrophotometric studies
some supergiants of the early spectral types and Wolf-Raye stars (1950 );
Biography:
She was born on March 31, 1913 in the Yablun village of the Belgorod province of the Russian Empire (now the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation).
After a year of study at the working faculty of the Pedagogical Institute and a year of study at the Institute of National Economy, she entered Leningrad State University, after graduation
which in 1939 was sent to work at the Abastuman Astrophysical Observatory.
Under the leadership of V. B. Nikonov she was engaged in photometric observations of variable stars. In 1945 she entered the graduate school of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and in 1946 came to Mount Cat to the Simeiz Observatory, where together with G. A. Shine, P.F. Shine and W.F. Gaze continued photoelectric observations of variable and peculiar stars.
In 1950 she defended her PhD thesis "Electrophotometric research some supergiants of the early spectral types and Wolf-Raye stars". These studies continued until the 1970s and studied the nature of variability in the UBV bands of magnetic and symbiotic stars, blue supergiants, Wolf-Raye-type stars, peculiar objects p Cas, EW Lac, CH Cyg.
In 1961 she was awarded the title of senior researcher.
She was one of the first who to join the implementation of the Grand Plan G.A. Shine on the study of the interaction of the interstellar medium and groups of early stars, which resulted in the study of the structure of the Galaxy. Direct images of the sky were obtained on the small telescope Dogmar in Simeiz village, and spectra with an objective prism - on the 16 "telescope in the Nauchniy village. She was the first observer on this telescope at the newly built observatory. She developed a method of spectral and photometric studies according to the Plan G. A. Shine, which was used by subsequent participants in this program. In the course of this work - partly in collaboration with P. F. Shine and N. B. Grigorieva - explored five sites along the Milky Way (studied the spectra, photographic quantities and color indices of the Milky Way), receiving photometric and spectral characteristics of almost 15,000 stars, which is about half of the total number of stars studied under the G. A. Shine Plan. These data allowed us to determine the structure of the absorber, the composition of star clusters and associations, specify their size and obtain the distribution of stars of different spectral classes in the spiral branches of Orion and Perseus. For the first time, she reliably determined the absorption of light in the direction of the crab nebula, which clarified the nature of the continuous spectrum of the nebula in optics.
In the last years of her life she wrote notes on the history of the observatory.
She died on February 19, 2002.
Sources:
1 www.crao.crimea.ua
2 Âîñïîìèíàíèÿ î Øêëîâñêîì / Ê.Ê.×óâàåâ
3 eprints.iliauni.edu.ge
4 Àñòðîíîìû Ðîññèè 1917-2017/ íàó÷. ðåä. À.Ì.×åðåïàùóê, Êàçàíü, Êàçàí, ôåä. óí-ò, 2017.- 568ñ- C. 66
