Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1900-1979)

English-born US astronomer who studied stellar evolution and galactic structure. Her investigation of stellar atmospheres during the 1920s gave some of the first indications of the overwhelming abundance of the lightest elements (hydrogen and helium) in the Galaxy.

Payne was born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, and studied at Cambridge University and at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, under US astronomer Harlow Shapley. She graduated in 1923. In 1927 she was appointed an astronomer at the observatory. In 1938 she was made Phillips Astronomer at Harvard Unviersity, before becoming professor of astronomy there in 1956.

Payne-Gaposchkin employed a variety of spectroscopic techniques in the investigation of stellar properties and composition, especially variable stars (stars that vary in brightness). Her studies of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds were carried out in collaboration with her husband Sergei I Gaposchkin.

Her other areas of interest included the devising of methods to determine stellar magnitudes, the position of variable stars on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, and novae.