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

A coloured print of Cambridge Observatory circa 1829. Annie Walker began working there in 1879 aged just 15. Photograph: Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

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.