Unsung observatory worker was UK’s first professional female astronomer, experts say

Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy is trying to find a photo of Annie Walker, who died in 1940, to give her star billing

For more than a century, astronomers assumed she had simply “computed” complex calculations for the Victorian men who had exclusive use of Cambridge Observatory telescopes.

But researchers now say that Annie Walker – a Victorian woman who began working at the observatory in 1879, when she was only 15 – actually observed thousands of stars herself.