So I’ve just mentioned Tycho, and his observations were used to show that the Earth orbits the Sun.
It’s perhaps less well known that his sister,
Sophia Brahe, worked with him
and was there during most of this time, including when he observed a supernova for the first time in 1572
and a lunar eclipse the following year,
Sophia was just 14 at that point.
Other young astronomers include 
Elisabetha Koopman Hevelius
she was married to a 52-year-old man when she was 16.
Jeanne Dumée became an astronomer at 17,
after becoming a widow.
She wrote Discourse on the Opinion of Copernicus, where she was 20 years old, which proved that
the Sun can't be orbiting the Earth.
However, unfortunately, this wasn’t taken as examples of how women can very obviously do science.
And distinguished scientists and astronomers
still had to correspond using pseudonyms,
including quite often their husband’s name.
This included Maria Cunitz despite the fact
that she had published a book in her own name
where she made one of the first
descriptions of the scientific method.
In a biography, published 50 years after her
death, she was described as "so deeply engaged
in astronomical speculation that she neglected
her household".
Yeah.
This view was echoed by MIT in 1906 and they said they couldn’t employ married women because:
"the College cannot afford to have women on
staff for whom the college work is secondary”
But it’s not “willing to approval” women
who put the housework secondary as well, so,
it’s as if you can’t win.
Around the same time, the French astronomer
Marguerite de la Sablière was mocked for
observing Jupiter, saying it would “ruin
her complexion”.
So all of this sort of implies you can’t
be considered both a “good woman” and
a good scientist.
There are some exceptions, thank goodness,
Sophie Germain was a French mathematician,
she corresponded with another [German] mathematician called Carl Gauss under a pseudonym.
And when she revealed her true identity to him in 1807,
he replied:
"when a woman, because of her sex, our customs
and prejudices, encounters infinitely more
obstacles than men in familiarising herself
with this sort of mathematics yet overcomes
this and penetrates that which is most hidden,
she doubtless has the most noble courage,
extraordinary talent, and superior genius".
And of course, as always, women did continue
to explore the universe.
Maria Eimmart, for example, made hundreds of astronomical illustrations in the 1690s.
Celia Borromeo discovered a type of mathematics
that allows you to draw shapes on rotating spheres,
which is obviously very important
for astronomy.
Huang Lü devised an early type of camera,
thermometer, and telescope in 1790.
And again, there are lots and lots of other
examples.
Now, science became better-defined in the
19th Century.
The term ‘scientist’ was used for the first time in the 1830s, and it became a profession in its own right by
the end of the century.
So part of doing this, was separating amateur
and professional astronomers, unfortunately.
And the motivation for this was that there
were religious constrictions on what could
be taught and researched.
So schools, universities, and places like
the Royal Society, you could only pursue knowledge
that was in line with the Bible.
So at the same time, there was a group of scientists who called themselves the ‘young guard’ and they tried
to change this, and they were quite influential.
They were part of the Royal Society, they
helped found the journal Nature and formed
what they called the X-Club, where they used
to meet for dinner and discuss evolution and
science, and it was here that Huxley coined
the term ‘agnostic’, and I think this
is because atheism was illegal at the time.
So they were fairly successful, and religious
tests were removed from science lessons in
the UK in the 1870s and amateur astronomers
– who they considered to be mainly funded
by the Church - were slowly removed from these
sorts of institutions.
There are some issues with this. One of them, that I'm going to focus on is women are more
likely to be amateur astronomers because they’re certainly not going to be paid at this point.
So these men, this group of powerful men who
aimed to rid themselves of what they considered
to be superstition and pseudoscience, managed
to keep those that benefited them, funnily enough.
And they continued to show the same level of prejudice
against women.
At the same time, science began to branch
into more specialised subjects, so they formed
sort of separate societies of their own, including
the Chemical Society, and the Geological Society,
and there's quite a few around the courtyard as you came in.
The Astronomical Society – where we are today - was founded in 1820 by 14 ‘gentlemen’ in a Tavern.
The astronomer William Herschel – whose
famous for discovering the first planet with
a telescope - became the first President.
His sister, Caroline Herschel, is less well
known, but she is just as important an astronomer.
She discovered an asteroid, five comets, a new galaxy, and made numerous star and nebula catalogues.
Now, in 1828, the Astronomical Society decided
to award her with a Gold Medal,
that was their highest honour.
At the meeting they said:
“The labours of Miss Herschel are so intimately
connected with those of her brother,
that an investigation into the latter is absolutely
necessary, but when we’ve done this,
an important part remains untold.
It was Miss Herschel who planned the labour
of every succeeding night.
It was Miss Herschel who arranged every thing
in systematic order, who made every observation,
and every calculation, and it was Caroline
Herschel that helped William Herschel
achieve his imperishable name.”
So this all sounds pretty good, like this might
be a step in the right direction.
However, the Royal Astronomical Society received its Royal Charter in 1831, Fellows were referred to as “he”.
And so Caroline Herschel and another astronomer, 
Mary Somerville, were instead
made “honorary members” in 1835.
At the meeting, it says:
“Your council has no small pleasure in recommending
that the names of two ladies, distinguished
in different walks of astronomy, be placed
on the list of honorary members.
There can be but one voice: and your Council
is of the opinion that the time is gone by
where either feeling or prejudice should be
allowed to interfere with the payment of a
well-earned tribute of respect”
So again, you might think, this is good, however
50 years later Isis Pogson was nominated to
become a Fellow for the first time.
“One man reported, that unless it could
be shown that a woman could not consistently
exercise the rights and perform the duties
of a Fellow, the Council could be compelled
to put the name of a woman up for election.
But when a second opinion was called for,
it was to the effect, that when the Charter
was granted, female Fellows were not likely
to have been in contemplation; and as the
masculine pronoun is used throughout, they
must be taken as not included.”
So. Yeah.
So after this, Pogson’s name was withdrawn
from consideration.
Six years later, three other women were nominated
to become Fellows and were denied for exactly
the same reason, this was
Elizabeth Brown, Alice Everett, and Annie Maunder.
Elizabeth Brown was a solar astronomer and
one of the co-founders of the BAA,
the British Astronomical Association, so this is a new
amateur astronomy group where women were allowed
to become members right from the beginning.
Alice Everett was one of the first people to,
first women, sorry, to be paid for her astronomical work.
So she worked as a ‘computer’ at Greenwich Observatory – at the time, this meant she was was
literally a person that computed things.
Annie Maunder co-discovered the “Maunder
minimum”. This was a period of time in the
1700s, when there were less sunspots, this
coincided with what we call the
“little ice age” in Europe, and it was that period
of time when the Thames used to freeze over.
When they were denied, one Fellow said:
“It was practically a proposal to introduce
into these dull meetings a social element,
and all we shall require is a piano and a
fiddle and I am sure many of my young friends
will be glad to dance through most of the
papers.”
Now, unfortunately, that was a pretty, 
pretty common view.
So, while women began to work as computers
at Greenwich Observatory,
in America, women began to work as computers at Harvard.
Edward Pickering was the director at the time
and in the late 19th Century, he began to
hire women, such as Anna Winlock, Williamina Fleming,
Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, both of whom were deaf.
And Antonia Maury, who I’ll mention a bit
later.
Now some suggest Pickering was progressive
for hiring women, however, I think it is worth
pointing out that he only had to pay them
half of what he would’ve paid a man.
So, Swan Leavitt, she discovered a type of
variable star, and these variable stars get
brighter and dimmer, and brighter and dimmer.
But they’re otherwise pretty much identical
so you could use them to measure the distance to things. If you measure them
at the maximum brightness, the brightest thing
is going to be closer. That makes sense.
However, she couldn’t do anything with this
information because women weren’t allowed
to use high-calibre telescopes until the 1960s.
So she discovered this in 1908, she verified
it in 1912.
And then in 1925, Hubble used this information,
to measure the distance to things in the Milky Way,
and he discovered, using this information,
that the Andromeda galaxy is a separate galaxy
to the Milky Way.
In 1929, he used this information to show
that the universe is expanding, and is hence
known as the person that proved the big bang
theory.
Annie Jump Cannon, she became a computer at
Harvard in 1896. She categorised over 200,000
stars, more than anybody else, she discovered
300 variable stars and 5 novae.
She also developed what’s known as the Harvard
Classification Scheme, and this is something
we still use today to distinguish types of
stars, to classifying stars.
She did this by combining the work of Antonia Maury and Williamina Fleming.
Fleming co-discovered the Horsehead nebula by the way, although she wasn’t credited at the time, obviously.
Fleming become an honorary member of the Royal
Astronomical Society in 1906, and Cannon in 1914.
I’m just going to briefly mention a few
other women that were very important at the
time , obviously there’s way too many to
mention, that’s what my twitter account’s
for, but Ada Lovelace is very important today,
I think to mention, she was considered the
world’s first computer scientist. She developed
the concept of software in 1842.
She developed a system which would have worked
if she had been able to implement it.
Another is Maria Mitchell, she set up a school
to teach girls mathematics when
she was 17 years old, and went on to become
the first [female] Professor of Astronomy
in America.
Margaret Huggins pioneered the field of spectroscopy,
which tells us what stars are made of.
She was also a co-founder of the BAA, as was Agnes
Giberne, who made some wonderful
textbooks. I think they’re really beautifully illustrated.
Right, so women gained more rights, a few
more rights in the 20th century, particularly
after the first two World Wars.
