Dr Robin Catchpole

Robin Catchpole, recent Senior Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, currently works at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. He took a BSc at University College, London, before being posted to the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. He received his doctorate from the University of Cape Town. In 1991 he returned to the Royal Greenwich Observatory, where he worked until it closed in 1998. He has authored and co-authored over 120 research papers and has used telescopes around the world including the Hubble Space Telescope. His research interests include the composition of stars, exploding stars, the structure of our Galaxy and galaxies with central black holes. He gives numerous popular lectures and radio and TV interviews.

Robin gives traditional lectures, richly illustrated with astronomical images, giving a mainly non-mathematical understanding of the current major ideas underlying astronomy. His research interests include the composition of stars, exploding stars, the structure of our Galaxy and galaxies with central black holes. While at Greenwich, he originated the design of the 33 ton bronze truncated cone at the new Astronomy Centre, completed and opened by the Queen in 2007.