Maria Margaretha Kirch (née Winckelmann, in historic sources named Maria Margaretha Kirchin; 25 February 1670 – 29 December 1720) was a German astronomer. She was one of the first famous astronomers of her period due to her writing on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter in 1709 and 1712 respectively.
Early life Maria was educated from an early age by her father, a Lutheran minister, who believed that she deserved an education equivalent to that given to young boys. By the age of 13 she had lost both her father and mother. By that time, she had also received a general education from her brother-in-law Justinus Toellner and the well-known self taught astronomer Christoph Arnold, who lived nearby in the town of Sommerfeld and was credited with being the first to discover a passing comet. She became Arnold's unofficial apprentice and later his assistant, living with him and his family. Astronomy was not organized entirely along guild lines during this time period. As a result, the journey to become an astronomer often looked very different on a case by case basis. Through Arnold, Maria met the famous German astronomer and mathematician Gottfried Kirch, who was 30 years her senior and had received training in astronomy by Johannes Hevelius and a formal education at the University of Jena. They married in 1692, later having four children, all of whom followed their parents by studying astronomy. Kirch benefited from his union with Maria in that he had a wife to take care of his children and an assistant to run calculations, gather data, and otherwise assist him. Meanwhile, Maria was able to continue her education in astronomy. Without their union, it is unlikely that Maria would have been able to participate in astronomy independently. In 1700, the couple moved to Berlin, as the elector ruler of Brandenburg Frederick III, later Frederick I of Prussia, had appointed Gottfried Kirch as the Astronomer Royal, a position awarded to an eminent astronomer.
Career, observations, and publications
Women were not afforded journeyman years during their apprenticeship, which left them dependent on those in their household for training. As a result, Gottfried Kirch gave his wife further instruction in astronomy, as he did for his sister and all his children starting from a young age. Due to societal norms and beliefs of the given time period, women were not allowed to attend universities in Germany. This did not completely exclude women from practicing astronomy, however, because the work of astronomy and the observation of the heavens took place largely outside the universities. The majority of astronomers during this time period did not have official degrees in astronomy. Instead, most astronomers held degrees in medicine, law, or theology. Prominent scientific universities in Kirch's time included the French Academie Royal des Sciences, Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Royal Society of London, all of which catered to a male audience. Thus, Kirch became one of the few women active in astronomy in the 1700s. She became widely known as the Kirchin, the feminine version of the family name. It was not unheard of in the Holy Roman Empire that a woman should be active in astronomy. Maria Cunitz, Elisabeth Hevelius, and Maria Clara Eimmart had been active astronomers in the seventeenth century. Through an edict, Friedrich III introduced a monopoly for calendars in Brandenburg, and later Prussia, imposing a calendar tax. The income from this monopoly was to pay astronomers and members of the Berlin Academy of Sciences that Friedrich III founded in July 1700. Friedrich III also went on to build an observatory that was inaugurated in January 1711. Assisted by his wife, Gottfried Kirch prepared the first calendar of a series, entitled Chur-Brandenburgischer Verbesserter Calender Auff das Jahr Christi 1701, which became very popular. Maria and Gottfried worked together as a team. In typical guild fashion she advanced from her position as Arnold's apprentice, to become assistant to her husband. Her husband had studied astronomy at the University of Jena and had served as apprentice to Johannes Hevelius. At the academy she worked as his unofficial, but recognised assistant. Women's position in the sciences was akin to their position in the guilds, valued, but subordinate. Together they made observations and performed calculations to produce calendars and ephemerides. From 1697, the Kirchs also began recording weather information. Their data was used to produce calendars and almanacs and it was also very useful in navigation. The Academy of Sciences in Berlin handled sales of their calendars. During the first decade of her work at the academy as her husband's assistant, Kirch would observe the heavens, every evening starting at 9 p.m. During such a routine observation she discovered a comet. On 21 April 1702, Kirch identified the so-called "Comet of 1702" (C/1702 H1). Today there is no doubt about Kirch's priority in discovering C/1702 H1. However, at the time her husband was credited with the discovery. In his notes from that night her husband recorded:
Early in the morning (about 2:00 AM) the sky was clear and starry. Some nights before, I had observed a variable star and my wife (as I slept) 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.
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