Catharine Octavia Stevens (1865-1959) was an amateur astronomer who was Director of the British Astronomical Association Meteor Section from 1905 to 1911. Her primary interest was the Sun and she made drawings of sunspots using a 3 inch refractor.
She joined the six month old British Astronomical Association on 27 May 1891.Larsen, Kristine, "Shooting Stars: The Women Directors of the Meteor Section of the British Astronomical Association", Antiquarian Astronomer, 2006, Issue 3, pp 76-77 On the 1911 census she gave her occupation as Astronomer, working for the British Astronomical Association and her address was The Plain, Foxcombe Road, Oxford., a house with an observatory at the top of Boars Hill, Oxford. She lived there from 1910 to 1956. In 1939 she gave her occupation as Meteorologist Astronomer.
Asteroid 50728, discovered March 4th 2000 by the Catalina Sky Survey, is named for her.
Travels
Catharine Stevens travelled to see total solar eclipses from Algiers on May 28, 1900, Majorca on August 30, 1905 and Quebec on August 31, 1932. She spent a year in Shetland to study the Aurora Borealis. She travelled to New Zealand and visited the hot springs at Rotorua.
Family She was born at the Rectory,1911 Census of England and Wales Bradfield, Berkshire on 23 January 1865,1939 England and Wales Register the eighth daughter of Thomas Stevens (1809-1888), Rector of Bradfield and founder of Bradfield College and Susanna Stevens née Marriott (c1824-1866),Deaths, Reading Mercury, 14 July 1866. daughter of Rev Robert Marriott, Rector of Cotesbach, Leicestershire.Marriages, Leicestershire Mercury, 25 March 1843 Catharine Stevens died on 16 June 1959.
Her older sister, Mary Ann Stevens, married John Oldrid Scott, son of the architect George Gilbert Scott.Reading Mercury, 2 May 1868
Publications
Obituary Written by James Henry Drake. Note that this obituary mis-spells her first name as "Catherine".
References
External links A drawing of the corona at the total solar eclipse of 30 August 1905, made by Catherine Stevens in Richard McKim, A different sort of society, Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 57, Issue 4, August 2016, Pages 4.14–4.17,