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Williamina Fleming was Scottish by birth and moved with her husband to the United States at the age of 21. Within a year of their arrival, while pregnant with their son, her husband abandoned her - then fate interceeded. Desperate for resources to support her new infant, Williamina secured a position in the household of Professor Edward Charles Pickering. He was the eminent director of the Harvard College Observatory , he later co-founded the AAVSO and she became his maid. Pickering's work at the observatory focused on variable and double stars using cutting edge tools like photography and spectroscopes. This generated a enormous amounts of raw data that was useless with out further analysis. For example, under Pickering's direction, the observatory amassed over 250,000 photographic plates. For all of the romance and wonder associated with Astronomy, in practice, astronomers deal with numbers- lots of numbers. Astronomical analysis is repetitive, tedious, exacting work and Pickering was plagued by the inaccuracies and disorganization of his male subordinates.
According to legend, Pickering finally became frustrated and declared that his maid could do better! It was an amazing and pivotal turn of events for this young person! Thus, Williamina was hired, in 1881, to perform clerical and mathematical work under Pickering at the Harvard Observatory. She was now about age 23.
Williamina quickly proved herself to be an asset. She created a system of classifying stars based on their hydrogen content. She was then placed in charge of dozens of women who were hired to perform mathematical analysis- the type of calculations that, today, would be handled by electronic computers. Interestingly, these people were called "computers"! She also edited the Observatory's publications and in 1906 was made an honorary member of London's Royal Astronomical Society.

She is credited with the discovery of 10 novae, over 310 variable stars and 59 gaseous nebulae including the wispy nebula in this picture, first seen in a photographic plate she was analyzing. Unfortunately, it was the custom of the day for a researcher to credit discoveries to their immediate superior.
(From Universe Today Archives)