A. David Andrews facts for kids

A. David Andrews (born 1933) is an Irish astronomer. An astronomer is a scientist who studies stars, planets, and everything else in space. He studied at Oriel College Oxford and the University of Dublin.

In the early 1960s, he worked in Denmark at the Aarhus Observatory. Then, in 1963, he moved to the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. He worked there for 35 years!

While working at the Boyden Observatory in South Africa, where he was also a director, Andrews made an exciting discovery. He found a small planet, or asteroid, which he named 1727 Mette. He named it after his Danish wife. It was also at Boyden Observatory that he started his important work on flare stars. These are stars that suddenly become much brighter for a short time. Andrews was also one of the first people to use computers at Armagh Observatory in 1968.

Boyden Observatory: A Journey Across Continents

The Boyden Station was first set up by Harvard University in 1889. It was located in Arequipa, Peru. The observatory was built thanks to a gift from Uriah A. Boyden.

In 1927, the Boyden Observatory moved a very long way! It crossed continents to its current home in South Africa. This new location became home to a large telescope called the Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard 36-inch Baker-Schmidt telescope. Many astronomers from Ireland and other countries used this telescope.

In 1976, the observatory was given to the University of the Orange Free State. The famous ADH telescope was taken apart. Some of its parts, like a large 32-inch prism, were moved to Dunsink Observatory in Dublin. After this, Andrews started to focus on new international observatories in Chile and on using satellite technology for his research.

Discovering Stellar Megaflares

Andrews reported a strange event in the Irish Astronomical Journal. He saw a star in the Auriga constellation that seemed to have a sudden burst of energy. This mysterious star was even called "Andrews' Star" by Professor G. Haro. This was part of his early work on flare stars and events similar to solar flares on our Sun. He was a pioneer in this field at Armagh Observatory.

Andrews worked with many scientists from different countries, including the UK, USA, South America, Russia, Armenia, Italy, and Greece. He worked with G. Haro, who was the director at the Tonantzintla Observatory in Mexico, to study stellar flares in young star clusters.

He also worked with W.E. Kunkel and Sir Bernard Lovell at the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. Together, they made one of the first discoveries of large radio flares coming from UV Ceti-type stars. One of these was a star called YZ CMi. What Andrews saw at Armagh in 1968 is now known as a stellar megaflare. This means it was an extremely powerful flare from a star!

Mapping Stars and Studying Rotation

In 1981, Andrews published a huge collection of measurements from the Armagh Observatory. It was called "A Photometric Atlas of the Orion Nebula". This atlas contained multi-colour measurements of over 16,000 stars! He used special photographic plates from telescopes in Australia and Chile, including the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Las Campanas Observatory.

In the 1990s, he also wrote a "Cyclopaedia of Telescope Makers" in seven parts for the Irish Astronomical Journal.

From 1984, Andrews actively searched for regular changes in the ultraviolet and infrared light from flare stars. These changes can tell scientists about active areas on the stars and how fast they spin. He also worked with other astronomers, including C.J. Butler and J. Linsky. They observed how stars like RS CVn and BY Dra rotate using the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite.

Andrews is now retired. He and his wife, Mette, live in Dore, a village near Sheffield in the UK.