HERSCHEL, CAROLINE LUCRETIA English astronomer, sister of Sir William Herschel, was born at Hanover on Mar. 16, 175o. She assisted her mother in the man agement of the household until 1772, when her brother fetched her to Bath, where he had established himself as a teacher of music. At once she became a valuable co-operator with him both in his professional duties and in his astronomical researches. When her brother accepted the office of astronomer to George III., she became his constant assistant in his observations, and also executed the laborious calculations which were connected with them. During her leisure hours she swept the heavens with a small Newtonian telescope and by this means she detected in 1783 three nebulae, and during the eleven years 1786-97 eight comets. In 1797 she presented to the Royal Society an Index to Flamsteed's observations, together with a catalogue of 561 stars accidentally omitted from the British Catalogue, and a list of the errata in that publication. She returned to Hanover in 1822, and in 1828 completed the reduction to January 1800, of 2,50o nebulae discovered by her brother. Caroline Herschel died on Jan. 9, 1848. She had received the gold medal of the Astronomical Society in 1828, and one from the king of Prussia in 1846.
See Mrs. John Herschel, Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel 0876).