Margaret Lindsay Huggins

Irish astronomer, Margaret Lindsay Huggins (1848-1915)
Credit: Irish Astronomical Journal

Margaret Lindsay Huggins was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1848 and was educated privately at home and at a school in Brighton, England. Her love of astronomy began at a young age, and she credits her Scottish grandfather for this early interest. She read books about the night sky and used her small telescope to project an image of the Sun so that she could study sunspots. She also dabbled in photography which later became one of her main areas of work. In the 1873 issue of the magazine Good Words, Huggins became fascinated by an article discussing the new field of astronomical spectroscopy and the work of William Huggins, the man who would become both her husband and astronomical collaborator. William Huggins was a renowned astronomical spectroscopist who was self-taught and who built his own observatory at his house in Tulse Hill on the southwest of London in 1856.

The Huggins's observatory, with which numerous astronomical discoveries were made.
Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

After marrying in 1875, Margaret and William Huggins began one of the most successful husband-and-wife partnerships in the field of astronomy. The pair worked together closely over the years, making significant contributions to the field. They were the first to apply the newly developed dry gelatine photographic plate to astronomical spectroscopy. They were also the first to observe and identify the series of hydrogen lines (the Balmer lines) in the spectrum of the star Vega. Along with photographing stellar spectra, the pair also photographed the spectrum of Tebbutt's Comet when it appeared in 1881. They also jointly published a series of papers on the spectra of the planets, the spectrum of the Orion Nebula, and the spectra of Wolf-Rayet stars [Note: these very massive stars have prominent broad emission lines of helium, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen].

Along with astronomy, Margaret also found time to contribute to the fields of music and art. She reported on the history of early musical instruments and wrote a monograph on the 16th century violin maker Gio Paolo Maggini. Needless to say, Margaret Lindsay Huggins was not only a gifted astronomer but was a great scientist and intellectual in general.