Waste Flake | Observations on Annie Jump Cannon Notebooks

Observations on the notebooks of Annie Jump Cannon

What I think the notations mean
Useful Sites for Transcribing Cannon
Notes for Reading 101
Annie Opera

This list was started on 2 July 2025, and the first bit is based on my memories of working on Cannon's notebooks beginning in June 2025. That includes PHaEDRA: Annie Jump Cannon Visual Observations #V, #VI, #VII, #IX

1903 or so, she was kicked off the telescope a couple of times by a male astronomer, I don't remember his name
The recording styles developed over time
- she adds references to charts and previous studies Circ 74, Circ 74 II most recently but a lot over the period
has visitors at least once in 1904, marked as "Visitors" but also a terrifically neat page before they got there, and then a 40 minute gap while they stayed. If we can find it again, we might be able to match it to data from her diaries.
evidence that she was in the process of developing her own sequence, called A.J.C.'s seq and C's seq, that's pretty recently too.
trouble with telescopes, refers to the new telescope at one point, and how fussy it was
"I have never seen this var brighter" or some such, shows paying attention
reference to new vars marked by an underscore _ Urs Maj
"Miss x's "new nova" or "new Algol"
adds assigned numbers to the vars by 1905
eye piece struggles and thinks it would be cleared with "a bigger lens"
"What is the matter with this chart?"
wonder if this is not how she developed her own sequence, that is, by doing hundreds or thousands of repetitive observations, her mind was free to wander and find patterns.
reference to colleagues such as Leavitt

Going forward, these are interesting things I ran across in IX and later notebooks, with specific links to the transcribed pages.

Miss Leland's New Var https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZiP
"very warm in dome" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZjv
"moon too bright and sky too hazy" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZjE
"Very poor sky in S.E. and bright searchlight sweeping over this portion of the sky. Also fireworks in Boston. " https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZjN
"Isn't there a better chart of R V Aq" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZke
"Isn't there an enlargement" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZkt
"Either this sequence is all awry or my eye is to-night." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZkI
"Z Aquarii is brighter than b. There are no stars any nearer than the R Aquarii. seq & comp are visible when Z is bright. As several are needed [[for??]] photog. a [[tau]] b, why not use the R seq." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZpj (she has done this a handful of times, recommended alternative methods of getting the needed data)
Reappearance of Jupiter's Satellite I https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54001/ETZs4

X

Mention of watches used in the process, and Jupiter's satellite reappears https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZtk
"I can not find V Hydrae. Perhaps the declination circle is out." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZtF
"Photo. seq. will have to be changed & added to if to be used visually. " https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZuu
Disappearance of Satellite III https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZu9
Sometime in late 1906, started adding color indications https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZC2
Turns out LPP might have been (completed and?) added to the page by somebody else (DBP?), although the numbers, specifically 8s and 4s, and handwriting look like Annie's, so I could be wrong about that. https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZC5
"Dome is ice bound, cannot move shutter." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZCe
"Northern light [[flashing??]], can not separate the var. clearly enough from d to estimate." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZCh
"Can not do anything with high power eye-piece on account of frost." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZCC
"l is different on our photo enlargement and the direct photograph posted on other chart. I have assumed the latter to be correct." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZCX
New short period variable at +28 degrees 54 https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54004/ETZzU

"This star can not be obs. with this telescope now, owing to wooden support on church being in way" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZFt
LPP starts recounting, which might mean the end of the fiscal year (or quarter? Never noticed before) on October 1st, 1907. https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZFC
"This chart has so many susp. variables that ident. is difficult." https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZG0
"Shutter will not open, clock will not run, eye-piece will not move out so as to get good focus, so hard in electric light!" https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZGY
Begins collecting information about Hour Angles and Sidereal Time in October of 1908. I think. Anyway, some new type of data being collected starting about this time. https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZIe
Over time, the HA/ST data gets more and more stripped down, so that by May 1909, she's only listing the ST sometimes with hours and minutes, and sometimes just the numbers. https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/54007/ETZJu