[1] When the David Dunlap Observatory opened in 1935, Ruth Northcott was part of the starting staff, initially as a research assistant.

[3] She was elected to membership in the International Astronomical Union in 1952, and served on the IAU's committee on the history of astronomy.

[4] She was also an active member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers,[5] and she helped to found the Richmond Hill Naturalists.

[1][2] She was editor of RASC's The Observer's Handbook (1968), a manual for amateur astronomers, and Astronomy in Canada: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1967).

[11] "I get a great deal of pleasure and a certain degree of excitement from investigating the stars," she told a Winnipeg newspaper in 1962.