Robin Catchpole

Scientifique

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Biography

Robin works as an astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. having retired as Senior Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in July 2004.

He Joined the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) from Bryanston School in 1962. After obtaining a BSc at University College London, he was posted to the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, S Africa (now known as the South African Astronomical Observatory) and spent the next 24 years, working first at the Radcliffe Observatory in Pretoria and then at the SAAO in Cape Town.

Robin obtained his doctorate at the University of Cape Town on The properties of the SC Stars and the Chemical Composition of UY Cen, under the supervision of Prof. Brian Warner. In 1991 he returned to the RGO in Cambridge, until it closed in 1998, when he moved to Greenwich as Senior Astronomer.

He has authored and co-authored over 100 research papers and articles and used a number of telescopes around the world including the Hubble Space Telescope. Research interests include the composition of stars, exploding stars, the structure of our Galaxy and galaxies with black holes at their centres. His current research interest is in the structure of the Bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy, as shown by Mira variables.

Robin is currently part of the team designing the Solar Pyramid (http://www.solarpyramid.co.uk/); a project to build a 54m high sundial near Chesterfield in Central England.

“The life cycle of the stars: are we star dust or nuclear waste?”

Wednesday, 10th November 2010

Doors open at 6:45pm for a 7:30pm start

Innovation Centre Medway Phase 2

The story of the birth and death of stars is the story of the battle of matter against gravity, the origin of the elements and some of the biggest bangs in the universe.

Dr Robin Catchpole

University of Cambridge, Institute of Astronomy

School of Engineering

University of Greenwich

Chatham Maritime