Maria Margarethe Winkelmann-Kirch (1670–1720)

Abstract

Again in the Teutonic lands, we move to Panitsch, near Leipzig, in the German state of Lower Saxony, to meet the first woman who officially discovered a comet: Maria Winkelmann, born on February 25, 1670. Since very young she was educated by her father, a Lutheran pastor, who believed in an equal footing education for both sexes. At the age of 13, she lost both her parents and her education continued under her guardian, uncle Justinus Toellner. Maria Margarethe became interested in astronomy already in a very young age and she had the opportunity to become a student, apprentice and then finally assistant of Christoph Arnold Sommerfeld known as the “peasant astronomer,” who discovered a comet in 1683. It was probably in this circle that she had the opportunity to meet her future husband, the astronomer and mathematician Gottfried Kirch (1639–1710) who became one of the most famous German astronomers of the time. He published a long series of calendars and ephemeris and discovered a comet in 1680, which became the first comet in history discovered with a telescope. Later, in 1686, he also discovered the X-Cygni variable star, the third known at the time. He was born during the Thirty Years War and his father Michael Kirch, a tailor, had to flee with his family from his native town of Guben. Kirch lived a quite restless childhood, and he probably did not get a degree, but he had good academic contacts, as for example Erhard Weigel, professor of mathematics at the University of Jena from 1653 to 1699, who recommended him to famous astronomer Johann Hevelius. Thanks to this recommendation, he could work for a short time, in 1674, in Danzig in Hevelius’ well-appointed private observatory, probably meeting also his second wife, the astronomer Elisabethe Koopman. Before reaching tenure Kirch maintained himself with the creation of calendars and as a teacher, living in various places like Langgrun, where in 1667 he married his first wife Maria Lang who died in 1690 after having given birth to seven sons and one daughter. Although the Winkelmann’s family was originally against the union, because of the 30 years of difference, and since they wished Maria Margarethe married to a Lutheran pastor, in May 8, 1692 she married Kirch, maybe following her astronomical interest. They had seven children, five daughters and two sons, who were all educated from the earliest age to the family business of astronomy, but apart from the firstborn Christfried, Christine and Margarethe, there is no information about the others. They initially lived in Saxony, in Leipzing and Guben, for a few years before moving in 1700 in Berlin where Kirch accepted tenure.

A comet of one’s own