Editing Heather Couper (section)

==Early life==
Born on 2 June 1949 in [[Wallasey]], [[Cheshire]],<ref name="Who's Who 2015">{{cite web|title=COUPER, Heather Anita|url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U12025|website=Who's Who 2015|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|access-date=2 June 2015}}</ref> Couper was the only child of George Couper and Anita Couper (née Taylor). At the age of seven or eight, she was watching planes in the night sky because her father was an airline pilot when she unexpectedly witnessed a bright green [[Meteoroid|meteor]]. Her parents said there was no such thing; but a newspaper headline the next day referred to a "green shooting star," and Couper then determined to become an astronomer.<ref name="passfail">{{cite web|last1=Sale|first1=Jonathan|title=Passed/failed: Heather Couper|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passedfailed-heather-couper-1266174.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passedfailed-heather-couper-1266174.html |archive-date=9 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|website=The Independent|access-date=22 October 2017|date=10 April 1997}}</ref>

She attended St Mary's Grammar School (merged with [[St. Nicholas Grammar School]] in 1977 to become [[Haydon School]]) on Wiltshire Lane in [[Northwood Hills]], [[Middlesex]]. At the age of 16, she wrote to British television astronomer [[Patrick Moore]] asking if she would be able to take up a career in astronomy, and received the reply "being a girl is no problem at all"!<ref name="astrotalk">{{cite web|title=Astronomy – A cultural perspective|url=http://astrotalkuk.org/2008/05/20/astronomy-a-cultural-perspective|access-date=1 October 2018|date=20 May 2008|archive-date=11 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611075521/http://astrotalkuk.org/2008/05/20/astronomy-a-cultural-perspective/|url-status=dead}}</ref>