Sisters Computer

Four Sisters of the Holy Child Mary – Sisters Emilia Ponzoni, Regina Colombo, Concetta Finardi and Luigia Panceri – did the painstaking work of evaluating the photographic data collected for contribution of the Vatican Observatory to the Carte du Ciel project. Examining each photograph millimeter by millimeter with a series of special illuminating microscopes, one of which is located below, the sisters catalogued the brightness and positions of 481,215 stars between 1910 and 1921.