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Woman of the Day astronomer Maria Winckelmann (1670-1720) of Germany, the second woman astronomer to be published in the Holy Roman Empire since Maria Cunitz. It’s her day because OTD in 1702, she became the first woman to discover a comet. Did she get the credit for it? Oh I think you know the answer to that. Maria’s father held unusual views for that period of history. A Lutheran minister, he thought she deserved an education as good as that offered to boys and taught her at home but he died when she was 13. In fact, she lost both parents by that age but her uncle continued to teach her. Maria also had the benefit of lessons from a self-taught astronomer who’d made a few discoveries himself and became his unofficial apprentice and assistant. When she was 22, she married another astronomer, a bloke called Kirch. He was thirty years older, a widower and father of eleven children. He benefitted by having a wife to run his household, bear another three children, gather data, run calculations for him and generally tidy up after him. I’m not sure what she gained from it. Nonetheless, they seemed to work as a team as far as astronomy goes and with her help, he was able to produce what were known as the Kirch calendars, annual almanacs with precise calculations of the phases of the moon, sunrise and sunset, position of the planets and any predicted eclipses. In 1702, her husband noted a bright light in the sky but decided it was a variable star. Two Italian astronomers saw it too but said it was a nebulous star. Maria decided to assess it herself and in the early hours of the morning 323 years ago today - it was a Friday, by the way - she spotted it and realised the truth. It was a comet. Her husband confirmed her find: “Early in the morning the sky was clear and starry. Some nights before I had observed a variable star, and my wife wanted to find and see it for herself. In so doing she found a comet in the sky. At which time she woke me and I found that it was indeed a comet…I was surprised that I had not seen it the night before.” Clearcut then. A straightforward discovery, wouldn’t you say? So who took credit for Maria’s find? He did. He didn’t come clean until 1710 but by then, it was too late. The comet was named for him and it is still officially attributed to him. Look it up if you don’t believe me. There are various schools of thought about why he took credit for Maria’s work but in my view, all of them have one thing in common: bruised male ego. The Matilda Effect strikes again - and once you know what it is, you see it everywhere. So I’m setting the record straight. It was your discovery, Maria. Brava!