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Dr. Mary Teresa Brück | |
---|---|
Máire Treasa Ní Chonmhidhe | |
Born | |
Died | 11 December 2008 83) | (aged
Nationality | Irish |
Other names | Mary Teresa Conway |
Citizenship | Republic of Ireland |
Alma mater | University College Dublin University of Edinburgh |
Spouse(s) | Hermann Brück (m. 1951); 3 children, 2 stepchildren |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy History of science |
Institutions | Dunsink Observatory University of Edinburgh |
Thesis | Studies of Hα Line Profiles in Prominences (1950) |
Doctoral advisor | Mervyn A. Ellison |
Mary Teresa Brück (née Conway; 1925–2008) 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. [2] [3] [4] [5]
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, [2] [3] and at University College Dublin where she studied physics. She earned BSc and MSc degrees, in 1945 and 1946, respectively. [5] [2] [3]
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. [2] [3]
Conway returned to Dublin to work at the Dunsink Observatory. The observatory had reopened as a research institute in 1947 when it was transferred to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and the German-born astronomer Hermann Brück (1905–2000) had been appointed as the new Director. [2] [3]
Conway and Hermann Brück, a widower with two children, married in 1951, after which she took the name Mary Brück. [2] [3] She had three additional children with him.
Hermann Brück was appointed Astronomer Royal for Scotland in 1957 and the family moved to Edinburgh. Brück was appointed a part-time lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in 1962. She subsequently became a full-time lecturer and was promoted to senior lecturer. [2] [3]
Mary Brück carried out research into stars, the interstellar medium and the Magellanic Clouds. Some of this made use of photographic observations from the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring in Australia.
She used the numbers, brightnesses and colours of stars in the Magellanic Clouds to study the structure and evolution of these nearby galaxies. [2] [3] She published widely in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , Publications of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Nature and Astronomy and Astrophysics . [6]
In 2001, she was awarded the Lorimer Medal of the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh in recognition of meritorious work in diffusing the knowledge of Astronomy among the general public. [7]
In July 2017, Dublin City University named a building after Dr. Mary Brück in recognition of her contributions to science. [8]
The Mary Brück Building at the University of Edinburgh was also named in her honour.[ when? ] [9]
Mary Brück collaborated with her husband on a biography of the 19th-century Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth. [10] She developed a reputation as an historian of science, specialising in the work of women in astronomy, and the history of astronomy in Scotland and Ireland. She published articles in several different journals, including the Irish Astronomical Journal, the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage and the Antiquarian Astronomer. She sat on the editorial board of the Antiquarian Astronomer. [5]
Mary Brück wrote a book on Agnes Mary Clerke, the prominent 19th-century Irish woman astronomer, author and commentator on science, Agnes Mary Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics. [11] This was followed by Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites, which described the work of women astronomers, many of whom had been overlooked previously. [12] Mary Brück contributed five articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and six to the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. [13] [14]
She is also the author of the classic 1965 Ladybird book, The Night Sky.
Charles Piazzi Smyth was a British astronomer who was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888; he is known for many innovations in astronomy and, along with his wife Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth, his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
John Louis Emil Dreyer, also Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer, was a Danish astronomer who spent most of his career working in Ireland. He spent the last decade of his life in Oxford, England.
Sir James South FRS FRSE PRAS FLS LLD was a British astronomer.
Ellen Mary Clerke was an Irish poet, linguist and a journalist. Originally from County Cork in Ireland, Clerke was educated in Italy. She wrote in English and Italian, publishing works on astronomy, travel, and poetry. Her journalistic works, including on European politics and current affairs, were published in several magazines in the 1880s and 1890s. Clerke died in London in 1906.
Agnes Mary Clerke was an Irish astronomer and writer, mainly in the field of astronomy. She was born in Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, and died in London.
Jesse Ramsden FRS FRSE was a British mathematician, astronomical and scientific instrument maker. His reputation was built on the engraving and design of dividing engines which allowed high accuracy measurements of angles and lengths in instruments. He produced instruments for astronomy that were especially well known for maritime use where they were needed for the measurement of latitudes and for his surveying instruments which were widely used for cartography and land survey both across the British Empire and outside. An achromatic eyepiece that he invented for telescopes and microscopes continues to be known as the Ramsden eyepiece.
The Dunsink Observatory is an astronomical observatory established in 1785 in the townland of Dunsink in the outskirts of the city of Dublin, Ireland.
Margaret Lindsay, Lady Huggins, born Margaret Lindsay Murray, was an Irish-English scientific investigator and astronomer. With her husband William Huggins she was a pioneer in the field of spectroscopy and co-wrote the Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1899).
The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an 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 School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, and the ROE Visitor Centre.
Hermann Alexander Brück CBE FRSE was a German-born astronomer, who spent the great portion of his career in various positions in Britain and Ireland.
The Edinburgh Astronomical Institution was founded in 1811 and wound up in 1847. It was instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh in 1822. The Institution raised funds, mostly by member subscription, to create three departments: A scientific observatory with an observer was to be under the control of the professors of mathematics, philosophy and astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, a popular observatory was to provide general instruction and amusement and a "physical cabinet" would comprise books, globes, meteorological and other instruments.
Mervyn Archdall Ellison was an Irish astronomer. He was recognized as a world authority on solar physics and the effect of solar flares on the Earth.
Mary Acworth Evershed was a British astronomer and scholar. Her work on Dante Alighieri was written under the pen name M.A. Orr.
Alice Everett was a British astronomer and engineer who grew up in Belfast. Everett is best known for being the first woman to be paid for astronomical work at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, when she began her employment at the observatory January 1890. In 1903 she was the first woman to have a paper published by the Physical Society of London. She also contributed to the fields of optics and early television.
Isis Pogson,, was a British astronomer and meteorologist who was one of the first women to be elected as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth made geological tours of the British Isles and Europe, and traveled to Egypt, Tenerife, and throughout the Mediterranean on scientific expeditions with her husband, Charles Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
The Giuseppe S. Vaiana Astronomical Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, housed inside the Palazzo dei Normanni. It is one of the research facilities of the National Institute of Astrophysics. The observatory carries out research projects in the field of astronomy and astrophysics including the study of solar and stellar coronas, stellar evolution and of the supernova remnants.
Hugh Ernest Butler FRSE MRIA FRAS was a pioneering Welsh-born astronomer. Wartime work included important contributions to anti-aircraft gunnery followed in peacetime by major contributions to galactic and extragalactic research particularly via ballistic rockets. He promoted the idea of an orbiting space telescope as early as 1958.
The Regius Chair of Astronomy is one of eight Regius Professorships at the University of Edinburgh, and was founded in 1785. Regius Professorships are those that have in the past been established by the British Crown, and are still formally appointed by the current monarch, although they are advertised and recruited by the relevant university following the normal processes for appointing a professorship.
Patrick Wayman was an English astronomer and director of Dunsink Observatory from 1964 to 1992.