Margaretha Kirch

Margaretha Kirch (* around 1703 in Berlin ; † after 1744 ) was an astronomer who worked in Berlin .

Live and act

Margaretha was the daughter of Gottfried Kirch and Maria Margaretha Kirch , and the youngest sister of Christfried Kirch and Christine Kirch . Few details are known about her life. She was only seven years old when her father died and never married.

Like her sister Christine, she was taught astronomy at the age of 10 and both initially assisted her brother Christfried with his observations. Margaretha later made observations of the weather and the starry sky, which she recorded in a weather observation diary.

Already on January 3, 1744 discovered long before the meteorologists Augustin Grischow in Berlin the Great Comet C / 1743 X1 and led observations and measurements with a 2 foot - and a 6-foot telescope through, the results of which they daily until 25 February made entries in her watch book .

After the comet had passed the sun , Margaretha observed and drew a streaky splitting of the comet's tail on March 5 , which was only observed on the following four days by well-known astronomers such as Joseph-Nicolas Delisle and Gottfried Heinsius in Saint Petersburg , as well as Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in Lausanne . In particular, her observation of March 7th is also recorded in an engraving .

Individual evidence

^ R. Wielen, Thomas Hockey (Ed.): Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . Springer, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0 , p. 638.
↑ M. Ogilvie, J. Harvey (Ed.): The BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY of WOMEN in SCIENCE - Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century: Volume 1 AK . Routledge, New York and London 2000, ISBN 0-415-92039-6 , pp. 1774-1775.
^ M. Kirch: Gewitter Observationes 1744. MK The manuscript is today in the Crawford Library of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. A copy was published by Leonhard Euler in L. Euler, EJ Aiton (Ed.): Commentationes mechanicae et astronomicae ad physicam cosmicam pertinentes. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1996, ISBN 3-7643-1459-1 , p. 182 ff. Under the heading "The following cometic observations are made by a skilled woman ...". Further details can also be found in a footnote on page XLVI of the introduction to the same work.
^ DAJ Seargent: The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars . Springer, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-387-09512-7 , pp. 116-119.

personal data
SURNAME	Kirch, Margaretha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Astronomer in Berlin
DATE OF BIRTH	1703
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	after 1744

[1] R. Wielen, Thomas Hockey (Ed.): Bibliographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . Springer, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0 , p. 638.

[2] M. Ogilvie, J. Harvey (Ed.): The BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY of WOMEN in SCIENCE - Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century: Volume 1 AK . Routledge, New York and London 2000, ISBN 0-415-92039-6 , pp. 1774-1775.

[3] M. Kirch: Gewitter Observationes 1744. MK The manuscript is today in the Crawford Library of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. A copy was published by Leonhard Euler in L. Euler, EJ Aiton (Ed.): Commentationes mechanicae et astronomicae ad physicam cosmicam pertinentes. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1996, ISBN 3-7643-1459-1 , p. 182 ff. Under the heading "The following cometic observations are made by a skilled woman ...". Further details can also be found in a footnote on page XLVI of the introduction to the same work.

[4] DAJ Seargent: The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars . Springer, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-387-09512-7 , pp. 116-119.