Wilhelmine Witte

Wilhelmine Sophie Elizabeth Witte (née Böttcher; 17 November 1777[1] – 17 September 1854) was a German amateur astronomer. Böttcher was born in 1777 in Hanover, the daughter of Johanne Sophie Marie, (née Brinkmann; 1755–1824) and of senator Gottfried Ernst Böttcher (1750–1823).[2][3] She married privy councilor Friedrich Christian Witte (1773–1854) on 17 November 1797[4] and they had 14 children, including Minna, Theodor and Friedrich Ernst.

She was interested in astronomy and bought her first telescope in 1815 (a Fraunhofer-Refrakter, the best telescope on the market at that time). She used this with the existing maps of the moon's surface (by Johann Heinrich von Mädler) to develop a terrain model of the moon.[1] Her globe, with a diameter of 34 centimeters, was presented by Mädler at an 1839 congress in Bad Pyrmont and can be seen today at the Historisches Museum Hannover. One year before, she presented a draft version to the astronomer John Herschel.[5] In 1840, she presented the globe to scientists and members of the Prussian royal household. It was afterwards bought by the royal family. In 1844, Witte prepared a new version of the globe which was presented by Herschel to the Society for the Advancement of Science at Cambridge.[6]

In 2006 the IAU named a patera on Venus "Witte Patera" after her in honor of her exploits in mapping the topography of the moon.[5] In 2011, a street in the Kirchrode district of Hanover was named after her.[6]