ABSTRACT

This book is about how we discovered that we live in a galaxy, in a universe of galaxies. The title phrase, ‘‘minding the heavens,’’ I borrowed from one of the astronomers I write about, Caroline Herschel. She was the sister of a famous astronomer of the late 1700s and early 1800s, William Herschel. Caroline not only assisted her brother in his exploration of the Galaxy, but also was an astronomer in her own right. When her brother had to be away, she was competent to take over at the telescope and ‘‘mind the heavens’’ for him.2