Lidiya Petrovna Tseraskaya née Shelekhova (Russian: Лидия Петровна Цераская) (22 June 1855 – 24 December 1931) was a Russian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

. Tseraskaya was born in

Astrakhan Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...

, and graduated from the Teacher's Institute in Petersberg. She worked at the

Moscow Observatory The Sternberg Astronomical Institute (Государственный астрономический институт имени Штернберга in Russian), also known as GAISh (ГАИШ), is a research institution in Moscow, Russia, a divisi ...

, where she discovered 219

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as ...

s; among them (1905)

RV Tauri variable RV Tauri variables are luminous variable stars that have distinctive light variations with alternating deep and shallow minima. History and discovery German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander monitored the distinctive variations in brightne ...

and recognized its uniqueness. The

Venusian crater This is a list of craters on Venus, named by the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. All craters on Venus are named after famous women or female first names. ''(For features on Venus othe ...

Tseraskaya was named after her. Her academic papers were published under her husband's name, "W. Ceraski". Tseraskaya was married to Vitold Tserasky (1849–1925), also known as Vitol'd Karlovic Tseraskiy or Witold Ceraski, who was Professor of Astronomy as Moscow University and director at the Moscow Observatory , after whom asteroid 807 Ceraskia and lunar crater ''Tseraskiy'' were named.

References

External links

Lidiya Tseraskaya, Soviet astronomer (1855–1931)
''Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Tseraskaya, Lidiya 1855 births 1931 deaths Russian astronomers 19th-century women from the Russian Empire