Elisabeth Hevelius - Infinite Women

Born: January 17 1647, Poland
Died: December 22 1693
Country most active: Poland
Also known as: Elżbieta Heweliusz

Elisabeth Catherina Koopmann-Hevelius was an astronomer in the 1600s and worked with her husband and fellow astronomer Johannes Hevelius.
Elisabeth Koopmann was born a member of a wealthy merchant family in Danzig (Gdańsk). Fascinated with astronomy from childhood, she approached Hevelius because he was an internationally renowned astronomer whose complex of three houses in Danzig contained the best observatory in the world. When they married in 1663, Elisabeth was 16 and Hevelius was 52. She was able to pursue her own interest in astronomy by helping him manage his observatory. Following Hevelius’s death in 1687, she completed and published Prodromus astronomiae in 1690, their jointly compiled catalogue of 1,564 stars and their positions. Published with support from King Sobieski, the work consisted of three parts: a preface (Prodromus), a star catalog (Catalogus Stellarum), and an atlas of constellations (Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia), with an outline of the methodology and technology used to create the star catalogue. Each star had specific information recorded in columns: the reference number and magnitude found by astronomer Tycho Brahe, Johannes’ own magnitude calculation, the star’s longitude and latitude by both ecliptic coordinates measured by angular distances and meridian altitudes, and the star’s equatorial coordinates calculated using spherical trigonometry.
Although the observations in the catalogue used only the astronomer’s naked eye, the measurements were so precise, they were used in the making of celestial globes into the early 1700s.

The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.

Elisabeth Hevelius, one of the first female astronomers, married the 52-year-old Johannes Hevelius when she was only 16, driven largely by her desire to study the stars—the internationally renowned astronomer owned the best observatory in the world. For more than 20 years, they worked together, and after his 1687 death, she completed and published their Prodromus Astronomiae, a catalogue of more than 1,500 stars. Despite her many contributions to the project, his was the only name on the title page.