The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Victorian maid from Dundee a pioneer of astronomy
Calls have been made to better recognise one of the pioneers of modern astronomy in her home city.
Williamina Fleming discovered and logged some of the best-recognised celestial bodies as the study of the skies took flight.
From humble beginnings, the Dundee-born astronomer’s contribution to natural science has been immeasurable.
Most famously, she was the first to identify one of the best-known objects in the sky – the Horsehead Nebula.
Born Williamina Stevens in Dundee’s Nethergate in 1857, she attended a school on Brown Street.
Here , she showed sufficient promise in her studies to become a teacher at the age of 14.
In 1877, aged 20, she married accountant and widower James Orr Fleming, and the couple emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, the following year.
Her husband abandoned her when she fell pregnant with their son, Edward, and to avoid the poorhouse she took a post as housekeeper to Professor Edward Charles Pickering, director of Harvard College Observatory.
Fleming clearly impressed Prof Pickering – within two years he offered her a new job helping him map the stars, and she
became one of the founding members of the Harvard Computers – an all-women team of “human computers” hired to compute mathematical classifications and edit the observatory’s publications.
She and her team led the search of the skies , discovering nearly 400 variable stars and other astral objects including, in 1888, the Horse head Nebula – a giant cloud of dust and gas in space forming the profile of a horse’s head and neck – and in 1910 a white dwarf, the burning embers of a star which has reached the end of its life.
Ken Kennedy, of Dundee
Astronomical Society and a director at the British Astronomical Association, explained: “Pickering initially had a group of male ‘computers’ who carefully looked at and measured the plates.
“This was tedious and repetitive work and he was not particularly happy about the efforts made by these men.
“At one point he is believed to have said in annoyance ‘my Scotch maid could do better’.
“Then in 1881 he decided to replace his male students with Fleming as his assistant.
“She was allowed to recruit suitable ladies and she, herself, worked on classifying stars by their spectra take non photographic plates.
“Fleming went further than just looking and sorting these images and actually classified the stars by the amount of hydrogen they contained.
“This new classification system was later known as the Pickering-Fleming System.”
The group of lady “computers” catalogued more than 200,000 stars over the next few years, and among the ladies whom Fleming had employed were Henrietta Leavitt – who discovered variable stars which eventually led to Hubble’s measurement of the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy – and Annie Jump Cannon, who refined the classification of stars by colour and temperature.
“In her time at Harvard, Fleming discovered 59 nebulae, 310 variable stars and 10 novae,” said Ken.
“She discovered the now famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion, describing it as having ‘a semi- circular indentation five minutes in diameter’.
“And in 1910 she was the first to discover a white dwarf star, 40 Eridani.”
Ken believes Fleming’s work and contribution to astronomy is not well enough known in Tayside and Fife, despite the fact she gained recognition from numerous astronomical organisations.
Fleming was made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1906 at a time when few women were awarded such an honour.
He r contribution to astronomy of her time, and of astronomy which was vital to future knowledge, was immeasurable.
She worked to promote jobs for women in science. She believed if women were given the same training as men they could do just as good a job.
Fleming died of pneumonia in Boston on
May 21 1911.