{"id":30174,"date":"2022-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=30174"},"modified":"2022-04-20T13:25:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T13:25:12","slug":"explainer-astronomers-you-should-know-annie-maunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/03\/24\/explainer-astronomers-you-should-know-annie-maunder\/","title":{"rendered":"Explainer: Astronomers you should know – Annie Maunder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The fundamentals of astronomy for beginners<\/p>\n\n

EXPLAINER<\/span><\/h2>\n\n
\n\n

Annie Maunder<\/h4>\n\n

Ezzy Pearson <\/strong>celebrates the achievements of the early 20th century\u2019s great solar scientist<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Annie Maunder, pictured here in 1931, analysed sunspots with her husband Walter (inset)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

This March, English Heritage commemorated the lives of two great solar scientists, Annie Maunder and her husband Walter, by placing a blue plaque on their former home on Tyrwhitt Road in Lewisham, south London. The pair spent decades observing and studying the Sun, even giving their name to a period of low solar activity at the end of the 17th century now known as the Maunder Minimum.<\/p>\n\n

English Heritage\u2019s blue plaque scheme, which began in 1866, honours notable people with distinctive circular signs on the buildings they lived and worked in. Twelve new plaques are erected annually, each one considered by a panel of historians, artists, scientists and writers. Howard Spencer, English Heritage\u2019s Senior Historian, explains why the Maunders have been selected. \u201cAs well as their important work on sunspots, solar photography and the debunking of the canals-on-Mars myth, the Maunders were also active in promoting amateur astronomy,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Annie Maunder was born Annie Russell in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1868. She excelled at school and earned a place at Girton College, Cambridge. Despite being her college\u2019s top mathematician, restrictions of the day meant she was unable to receive a degree: her achievements occurred during a time when being a woman meant she was barred from academic recognition, and much of professional astronomy.<\/p>\n\n

In 1891, she took a position at the Royal Observatory Greenwich as a \u2018lady computer\u2019, mathematically calculating the positions and brightnesses of stars by hand. In the late 19th century, this tedious, low-paid role was performed by university-educated women who were denied the higher status jobs of their male counterparts.<\/p>\n\n

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The Maunders\u2019 1904 butterfly diagram, showing sunspot distribution from 1876\u20131902<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
Partners in science<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Annie began work at Greenwich\u2019s solar observatory, taking daily photographs of the Sun with the Royal Observatory\u2019s Dallmeyer photoheliograph, which she then analysed for sunspots and reported the findings to colleague, Edward Walter Maunder. The two built on the research of the 19th-century German astronomer Gustav Sp\u00f6rer, by analysing sunspot patterns going back over centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

They noticed that from 1645 to 1715, sunspots had been exceedingly rare, and this timespan is now known as the Maunder Minimum. Annie\u2019s contributions, however, went unrecognised at the time, as the bar on women being awarded degrees had the knock-on effect that she couldn\u2019t be listed as an author on the paper, an oversight that did not sit well with Walter.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWalter Maunder was a founder member of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) in 1890 and <\/span>Annie had two spells as the editor of its journal,\u201d says Spencer. \u201cIt was their avowed aim that this new organisation should be more accessible to women, and would \u2018afford a means of direction and organisation in the work of observation to amateur astronomers\u2019 \u2013 many of whom, of course, went on to make significant discoveries themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

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The Maunders\u2019 blue plaque was unveiled in March<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Over time, the two grew closer than mere colleagues and married in 1895. They lived together at two houses on Tyrwhitt Road, including the one being honoured with a blue plaque, continuing their work. Annie was listed as an author on several of Walter\u2019s papers, investigating the relationships between sunspots and magnetic storms.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt was during their time on this road that they published the 1904 article, with its famous butterfly diagram\u2019,\u201d says Spencer, referring to their diagram (above) showing the latitude positions of sunspots over time. As sunspots tend to appear nearer the equator at certain times of the 11-year solar cycle, these have a lobed shape that resembles a butterfly.<\/p>\n\n

In 1907, she finally published her first solo paper, titled, \u2018An analysis of the formidable sunspot data set that had been gathered at the ROG, covering 1889\u20131901\u2019. It was a huge report, analysing data from a useful span of years and showing asymmetries in the east\u2013west parameters of sunspots.<\/p>\n\n

One of the most important works for the Maunders, however, was their jointly written book entitled, The <\/em>Heavens <\/em>and <\/em>their <\/em>Story, <\/em>published in 1908. It was an early example of a popular science book aimed at a general audience, featuring several pictures of the Sun and Milky Way taken by Annie, and it makes frequent references to Hilly Fields, a park near to Tyrwhitt Road.<\/p>\n\n

Annie worked alongside Walter until he died in 1928, and then carried on researching until her death in 1947.<\/p>\n\n

As well as the plaque, her work in bringing astronomy to the public is recognised by the Royal Astronomical Society\u2019s Annie Maunder medal for Outreach and the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards.<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

Following the Sun<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Maunders\u2019 studies of the Sun from took them from their Lewisham home all over the world<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A reproduction of Annie\u2019s photo of the longest-ray, which she captured during the solar eclipse on 22 January 1898<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the Maunders married, Annie was forced to give up her official position at Greenwich, but continued to work alongside her husband unofficially \u2013 including accompanying him on the many expeditions he took around the world to see and photograph eclipses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Annie had to pay her own way on these trips, she was given a grant from her alma mater, Girton College, Cambridge, which she used to buy a camera with an unusually large field of view. Armed with this camera and unbound by the expedition rules and itinerary, she could often venture off and take images the official astronomers could not. One particularly dramatic example is her \u2018longest-ray\u2019 photograph taken in 1898. This showed a coronal streamer 14 solar radii in length \u2013 the longest on record at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her unofficial status, Annie was often included in the expedition write ups, such as one written in 1901, which included her description of \u2018plume-like rays\u2019 in the corona, a term astronomers still use today.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\n
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\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Dr Ezzy Pearson <\/strong>is BBC Sky at Night Magazine\u2019s <\/em>news editor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

PHOTOS: \u00a9 NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY LONDON TOMBOGDAN OF HIGH ALTITUDE OBSERVATORY\/NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION X 2, ENG LISH HERITAGE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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