Mary Somerville and Margaret Huggins: a collaborative voice at the embryonic stages of nineteenth-century astronomical specializations

"This dissertation investigates the authorial presence of two practitioners at the embryonic stages of two specializations in nineteenth-century astronomical research. Mary Somerville used prismatic analysis to separate solar rays and Margaret Huggins applied photography to spectrum analysis. How these scientific persons wrote about their experiments and outcomes in scientific papers will be assessed. My work will demonstrate that both Somerville and Huggins wrote most effectively in a collaborative voice although they wrote for different audiences. Their voices linked their own work with that of their peers as spectrum analysis provided a more ""intimate"" way to look at the stars."