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Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) was the first American woman who could truly be described as an astronomer and the first American to be credited with the discovery of a comet. In the mid-19th century, much kudos was attached to finding new comets and the international recognition Mitchell received after being awarded one of the King of Denmark’s medals for her discovery contributed to raising the worldwide standing of American astronomy, adding to the momentum driving professionalised astronomy forward in the US.

Betelgeuse has been the focus of considerable recent attention – even from the mainstream news media – due to its recent deep minimum, to the extent that 10% of all the light curve data on the star in the AAVSO archive, extending 126 years, have been obtained in just the last six months. While it is not impossible that Betelgeuse will become a supernova in the next few years or decades, what we know about the star makes this unlikely. A large part of the uncertainty comes from the fact that neither the mass nor the distance are well-established. It is not even certain that Betelgeuse will become a core-collapse supernova. Overall, the star appears to have brightened significantly over the last 60 years, but the evidence for similarly deep minima in 1946, 1947 and 1984 relies on fragmentary data and single observers. The entire extreme historical range of Betelgeuse from magnitude 0.1–1.6 appears to have occurred in just the last three years.