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Mervyn A. Ellison
Mervyn Archdall Ellison (5 May 1909 – 12 September 1963) was an Irish astronomer. He was recognized as a world authority on solar physics and the effect of solar flares on the Earth. Life He was born at Fethard-on-Sea in County Wexford, Ireland, the third son of Reverend William Frederick Archdall Ellison, and was home tutored until the age of nine when his father became the director of Armagh Observatory. Mervyn was entered into the Royal School, Armagh, and during his spare time, he developed an interest in astronomy. In 1927 he began his undergraduate work at Trinity College Dublin, where he studied physics and was elected a Scholar. On 9 November 1928 he was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society. He also served as president of the University Philosophical Society in 1931-32. In 1931–32 he worked on radium emanations for the Dublin hospitals under a Fitzgerald Research Scholarship. He was awarded a M.Sc. in 1932 and a Sc.D. in 1944. Ellis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish People
The Irish ( or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common ancestry, history and Culture of Ireland, culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been continually inhabited for more than 10,000 years (see Prehistoric Ireland). For most of Ireland's recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaels, Gaelic people (see Gaelic Ireland). From the 9th century, small numbers of Vikings settled in Ireland, becoming the Norse-Gaels. Anglo-Normans also Norman invasion of Ireland, conquered parts of Ireland in the 12th century, while Kingdom of England, England's 16th/17th century Tudor conquest of Ireland, conquest and Plantations of Ireland, colonisation of Ireland brought many English people, English and Scottish Lowlands, Lowland Scottish people, Scots to parts of the island, especially the north. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland (officially called Republic of Irela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Astronomical Association
The British Astronomical Association (BAA) was formed in 1890 as a national body to support the UK's amateur astronomers. Throughout its history, the BAA has encouraged observers to make scientifically valuable observations, often in collaboration with professional colleagues. Among the BAA's first presidents was Walter Maunder, discoverer of the seventeenth century dearth in sunspots now known as the Maunder Minimum which he achieved by analysing historical observations. Later, this spirit of observing the night sky scientifically was championed by George Alcock, who discovered five comets and five novae using nothing more than a pair of binoculars. The BAA continues to contribute to the science of astronomy, even despite modern competition from space-based telescopes and highly automated professional observatories. Modern digital sensors, coupled with techniques such as lucky imaging, mean that even modest amateur equipment can rival what professional observatories could h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies
The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) () is a statutory independent research institute in Dublin, Ireland. It was established, under the Institute For Advanced Studies Act 1940, by the government of the then Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera. The institute consists of three schools: the School of Theoretical Physics, the School of Cosmic Physics and the School of Celtic Studies. The directors of these schools were, as of 2023, Professor Denjoe O'Connor, Professor Tom Ray and Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn. The institute, under its governing act, is empowered to "train students in methods of advanced research" but does not itself award degrees; graduate students working under the supervision of Institute researchers can, with the agreement of the governing board of the appropriate school, be registered for a higher degree in any university worldwide. Following a comprehensive review of the higher education sector and its institutions, conducted by the Higher Education Author ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunsink Observatory
The Dunsink Observatory is an astronomical observatory established in 1785 in the townland of Dunsink in the outskirts of the city of Dublin, Ireland. Alexander Thom''Irish Almanac and Official Directory''7th ed., 1850 p. 258. Retrieved: 2011-02-22. Dunsink's most famous director was William Rowan Hamilton, who, amongst other things, discovered quaternions, the first non-commutative algebra form, while walking from the observatory to the city with his wife. The annual Hamilton Walk that commemorates this discovery begins at the observatory. He is also renowned for his Hamiltonian formulation of dynamics. History The observatory was established by an endowment of £3,000 in the will of Francis Andrews, who was Provost of Trinity College Dublin at his death on 18 June 1774. The site was established on the south slope of a low hill in the townland of Dunsink, 84m above sea level. The South Telescope, a 12-inch Grubb instrument, is a refracting (i.e. it uses lens) telescope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Astronomical Observatory
The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's function is to conduct research in astronomy and astrophysics. The primary telescopes are located in Sutherland, which is from Observatory, Cape Town, where the headquarters is located. The SAAO has links worldwide for scientific and technological collaboration. Instrumental contributions from the South African Astronomical Observatory include the development of a spherical aberration corrector and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The Noon Gun on Cape Town's Signal Hill is fired remotely by a time signal from the Observatory. History The history of the SAAO began when the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 1820, the first scientific institution in Africa. Construction of the main buildings was c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliograph
A heliograph () is a solar telegraph system that signals by flashes of sunlight (generally using Morse code from the 1840s) reflected by a mirror. The flashes are produced by momentarily pivoting the mirror, or by interrupting the beam with a shutter. The heliograph was a simple but effective instrument for instantaneous optical communication over long distances during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main uses were military, surveying and forest protection work. Heliographs were standard issue in the British and Royal Australian armies until the 1960s, and were used by the Pakistani army as late as 1975. Description There were many heliograph types. Most heliographs were variants of the British Army Mance Mark V version (Fig.1). It used a flat round mirror with a small unsilvered spot in the centre. The sender aligned the heliograph to the target by looking at the reflected target in the mirror and moving their head until the target was hidden by the unsilvered spot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West had been seriously interrupted. Sixty-seven countries participated in IGY projects, although one notable exception was the mainland China, People's Republic of China, which was protesting against the participation of the Republic of China (Taiwan). East and West agreed to nominate the Belgian Marcel Nicolet as secretary general of the associated international organization. The IGY encompassed fourteen Earth science disciplines: Auroral light, aurora, airglow, cosmic rays, Earth's magnetic field, geomagnetism, gravity, ionosphere, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations (precision mapping), meteorology, oceanography, Ionizing radiation, nuclear radiation, glaciology, seismo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Observatory (journal)
''The Observatory'' is a publication, variously described as a journal, a magazine and a review, devoted to astronomy. It appeared regularly starting in 1877, and it is now published every two months. The current editors are David SticklandBob Argyle Steve FosseyPhillip Helbig and Quentin Stanley. Although it is not published by the Royal Astronomical Society, it publishes the reports of its meetings. Other features are the extensive book reviews, correspondence, thesis abstracts, obituaries, and "Here and There", a collection of misprints and ridiculous statements of astronomical interest. As of 2025, it is a diamond—open-access publication. The founder and first editor (1877–1882) was William Henry Mahoney Christie, William Christie, then chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory and later Astronomer Royal. Notable subsequent editors include: * Arthur Eddington (1913–1919) * Harold Spencer Jones (1915–1923) * Richard van der Riet Woolley (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Brück
Mary Teresa Brück (née Conway; 29 May 1925 – 11 December 2008) was an Irish astronomer, astrophysicist and historian of science, whose career was spent at Dunsink Observatory in Dublin and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh in Scotland. Early life Mary Teresa Conway was born on 29 May 1925 in Ballivor, County Meath, Ireland, the eldest of eight children. She used the Irish form of her name, Máire Treasa Ní Chonmhidhe, while attending convent school, where she showed talents for mathematics, science and music, and at University College Dublin where she studied physics. She earned BSc and MSc degrees, in 1945 and 1946, respectively. Astronomer Mary Conway was a postgraduate at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), where she carried out research in solar astrophysics, culminating in the award of a PhD in 1950. Her doctoral supervisor was fellow Irish-born scientist Mervyn Archdall Ellison, then a principal scientific officer at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Conway ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established in 1783. , there are around 1,800 Fellows. The Society covers a broader range of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. The Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines: science and technology, arts, humanities, medicine, social science, business, and public service. History At the start of the 18th century, Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies (see Scottish Enlightenment). Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin in 1731. Maclaurin was u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Prominence
In solar physics, a prominence, sometimes referred to as a filament, is a large Plasma (physics), plasma and magnetic field structure extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop shape. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the much brighter photosphere, and extend outwards into the solar corona. While the corona consists of extremely hot plasma, prominences contain much cooler plasma, similar in composition to that of the chromosphere. Like the corona, solar prominences are only visible to the naked eye during a Solar eclipse, total solar eclipse. Prominences form over timescales of about a day and may persist in the corona for several weeks or months, looping hundreds of thousands of kilometers into space. Some prominences may give rise to coronal mass ejections. Exact mechanism of prominence generation is an ongoing target of scientific research. A typical prominence extends over many thousands of kilometers; the largest on record was estimated at ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Observatory, Edinburgh
The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an Astronomy, astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) of STFC, the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy, School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre. The observatory carries out astronomical research and university teaching; design, project management, and construction of instruments and telescopes for Observatory, astronomical observatories; and teacher training in astronomy and outreach to the public. The ROE Library includes the Crawford Collection of books and manuscripts gifted in 1888 by James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, the 26th Earl of Crawford. Before it moved to the present site in 1896, the Royal Observatory was located on Calton Hill, close to the centre of Edinbu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
