Helen Lines


Helen Chambliss Williams Lines was an American amateur astronomer. In her beginnings she was a deep-sky observer and astrophotographer.

Astronomy

In 1969, Lines was one of early members of the Phoenix Astronomical Society. Lines was a member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. She and her husband, civil engineer Richard D. Lines, built a small observatory in Mayer, Arizona, and wrote about its construction for Sky & Telescope. In 1992 they won the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for their work in the field of photoelectric photometry of variable stars. She was a co-author on two scientific papers published in the mid-1990s.

Publications

  • "A New Amateur Observatory in Central Arizona"
  • "UBVRI photometry of the recurrent nova T coronae borealis"
  • "Evolution of starspots in the long-period RS CVN binary V1817 Cygni = HR 7428"
  • "The Two Variables in The Triple System HR 6469=V819 Her: One Eclipsing, One Spotted"
  • "Starspots Found on the Ellipsoidal Variable V350 Lacertae = HR 8575"

    Personal life

Helen Chambliss Williams was born in Forrest City, Arkansas, the daughter of Russell Williams and Sadie Borden Williams. Her father was the chief of police in Forrest City. She married Richard Damon Lines in 1936. They had a daughter, Chambliss. Richard Lines died in 1992, and Helen Lines died in 2001, aged 82 years, in Searcy, Arkansas.