Caroline Herschel. Telescopes, Comets, and Catalogs

Caroline Herschel was born in Hannover, Germany, the sister of William Herschel, who became an important astronomer, as did she. (She was also an able musician, as was he. Between them, they played seven instruments.

She also sang.) During the 1770s, they began making telescopes and taking data. Caroline began as William's assistant. He made the observations and dictated the results to her, but she soon took over mathematical computations.

Her own career took off with comet-hunting. She discovered eight. In addition, she described many hitherto unknown galactic objects.

The first of these, NGC2360, is a cluster of stars, often called Caroline's Cluster. Unhappy with the format (and the errors) in older star catalogs, Caroline made her own, surpassing the others. She was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

She was also appointed an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Royal Irish Academy. On her 96th birthday, she received a Gold Medal for Science from the Prussian King. A lunar crater and an asteroid are named after her.