Caroline Herschel

Astronomer

Caroline Herschel

• 16th March 1750 - 9th January 1848
• Born in Hanover, Germany, but lived and worked in the early part of her career in Bath, England before eventually returning to Germany.
• Initially Caroline was an opera singer working with her brother in his musical career until his passion for astronomy was ignited.
• Her brother William taught Caroline mathematics, before coming his assistant; keeping records of observations.
• 1st August 1786, discovery of her first comet and became the first woman to discover a comet.
• 1787 became the first professional woman astronomer in Britain.
• 1828 awarded a Gold Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society for her work on the nebulae catalogue. (First Gold Medal for a woman)
• 1835 named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society (women were not permitted to join at this time).
• 1838 Honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.
• 1846 the King of Prussia presented her with a Gold Medal for Science.
• Over her life time Carlone discovered 8 comets, an open cluster (NGC 2360), 14 new nebulae including the discovery of M110 a companion galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy. Together with her brother they updated and corrected the errors of John Flamsteed’s star catalogue, adding a further 560 stars, and produced a catalogue of 2500 nebulae. .
• Caroline Hershcel wrote her inscription on her tombstone “The eyes of her who is glorified here below turned to the starry heavens”.
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Ceciliar Payne-Gaposchkin

Astronomer

Ceciliar Payne-Gaposchkin

• 10th May 1900 - 7th December 1979
• British-born American astronomer
• 1919 Scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University
• 1923 Pickering Fellowship at Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge Massachusetts
• 1925 published her PhD thesis as Stellar Atmospheres, determining that stars are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. (Received the first PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College as Harvard didn’t grant doctoral degrees to women)
• 1930 published Stars of High Luminosity (Cepheid variables)
• 1934 Cannon Prize for significant contributions to astronomy
• 1938 lecturer of astronomy
• 1956 Full professor at Harvard and chaired the astronomy department
• 1961 Rittenhouse Medal of the Franklin Institute
• 1976 Henry Norris Russell Prize (first women to win)
• Published over 150 papers and several monographs including a virtual encyclopaedia of astrophysics, Variable Stars (1938) and stars and stellar evolution