Fiammetta Wilson

British astronomer, Fiammetta Wilson (1864-1920)
Credit: Royal Astronomical Society

Fiammetta Wilson was born in Lowestoft, England in July 1864. Wilson's original interests were in languages and music, and she became a brilliant conductor of an orchestra. It wasn't until after she married and attended a series of astronomy lectures around 1910 that her passion for the night sky began to blossom. She became engrossed in the field of astronomy and gave up a great deal of her music to devote more time for study of this fascinating subject. One of Wilson's favorite astronomical topics was that of meteors. Undeterred by even the most unfavorable weather conditions, she would stare out at the night sky for five to six hours in the hopes of catching sight of a meteor streaking through the atmosphere.

In her quest for meteors, Wilson can be said to have been somewhat of a daredevil. In one particularly peculiar event during WWI, Wilson was nearly arrested because she was thought to have been a German spy (she had been using a flashlight to record meteors, and some thought that she was using some sort of code to signal to the enemies). Also during the war, with bombs falling from the sky, she continued with her observing sessions as if nothing dangerous was happening around her. Falling splinters from shrapnel once drastically increased the hazard level, but Wilson still continued to pursue her meteor recordings. These events certainly brought excitement to what might have been an undoubtedly boring and oftentimes unfruitful task of meteor-hunting. I think it's safe to say that Ms. Wilson was a pretty determined night sky observer and my new favorite astronomer.