Celestial Machines: Caroline Herschel, Astronomical Notebooks and the Material Culture of Predigital Communication Systems

Odile Manon Lehnen, MPhil

Unlike many other women in science, Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) was and is well known for her career in astronomy. This however is only true for certain aspects of her contributions. Herschel has been praised as an independent comet hunter and an indispensable, but passive, assistant to her brother William Herschel. This project offers a new perspective on Herschel’s scientific achievements by focusing on her use of notebooks and other paper technologies for the accumulation and production of astronomical knowledge. Within this framework, I pay particular attention to the many astronomical diagrams and sketches the Herschel notebooks are filled with. Which visual techniques did Caroline Herschel develop and use that were key tools in the process of observation alongside telescopes and other instruments? Instead of considering the Herschel notebooks merely as texts, I explore them as objects of inquiry in their own right and ask how they were designed and used as efficient information management systems. How did information travel through various manuscripts and how was it transformed as Herschel transcribed it from one notebook into another? Throughout the project, I explore where Herschel learned her diagramming and information management techniques. Instead of attributing the origins of Herschel’s data management devices and innovative diagrammatic representations exclusively to elite and male universities and academic learned societies, I aim to highlight how Caroline Herschel’s methods developed from her own ingenuity.