Pat Corvan – A Legacy at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium Matthew McMahon – Museum Collections Officer – Astronotes

Matthew McMahon – Museum Collections Officer

Patrick (Pat) Corvan was born 18 March 1840 and handed away on 28 December 2024. He was a longstanding good friend of the establishment and former workers member, and a beneficiant mentor to a youthful technology of scientists and historians. His affiliation with astronomy, and Armagh Observatory started on the night of 20 April 1953 (see determine 1).

Determine 1. Web page 344 of the Armagh Observatory Customer E-book (ARM ADM 14.1)

Pat described his go to as follows, having include some mates from college. He claimed he had no real interest in astronomy, “However at the moment, I wasn’t even conscious that Armagh had an observatory…”.

After analyzing the plate and all after which when it was darkish sufficient, he [Dr Lindsay, Director of the Armagh Observatory] took us out to the 10-inch dome and the primary object we noticed was the Moon. Mm hmm. After which Saturn and naturally it was implausible after which the double star. Castor, after all , and that’s the way it began[1]

In October of 1954, whereas Patrick Moore was in Northern Eire visiting the Armagh Observatory, he was launched to Pat. Moore supplied Pat with the elements required to make a mirror for a small reflecting telescope, and Dr Lindsay supplied him with entry to the workshop and required chemical compounds to grind the mirror into form. Pat was aided by an American PhD pupil, Franklin Kamney, who was in Armagh at the moment. Pat described the expertise as follows;

“It was good, we totally loved it. It took us a lot of instances a month to get it completed… And I need to confess, I feel that that telescope, utilizing that telescope gave me extra pleasure than anything as a result of it was made by us.[2]

He joined the Irish Astronomical Society and attended most of the talks held within the Armagh Centre and in 1965 he started to usually help Patrick Moore, who had moved to Armagh, with planetary statement with the Grubb 10-Inch telescope. Pat had first used this telescope in 1953, and final used it in December 2023, making him the longest person within the historical past of the instrument. Although Pat was supportive of the brand new Armagh Planetarium, his first ardour was observational astronomy. In 1975 a brand new telescope was put in at Armagh Planetarium, a contemporary 16-inch reflecting telescope.[3] Pat was formally employed by the Armagh Planetarium on 1 December 1975 as a caretaker however was the first operator of the general public telescope till his retirement on 17 March 2005. He described his instructional fashion as an try and recreate the surroundings during which he first fell in love with astronomy. He most well-liked quiet dialog on the telescope to public lectures, and his conversational fashion of educating impressed lots of of holiday makers, a lot of whom nonetheless bear in mind his method in 2025 and may recall vividly their first encounter with Saturn, or the Moon, underneath the steerage of Pat. Determine 2. Exhibits Pat on the eyepiece of the telescope although he continued to make use of the Armagh Grubb 10-Inch all through his profession and was instrumental in serving to to craft the educational procedures that also govern its use at present.

Determine 2. Pat on the eyepiece of the Public Telescope at Armagh Planetarium.

Determine 3. The Armagh Planetarium Bungalow in 1982.

There had been plans for a lot of years to offer a dwelling onsite for the caretaker and in 1980 the constructing was accomplished. The minutes of the Planetarium Administration Committee point out the Corvan household took up residence from 1 August 1980. The residence allowed Pat to extend the variety of nights throughout which the Public Telescope was operated, in addition to offering a needed safety association for the protection of the Planetarium constructing at evening.

Pat remained a detailed good friend of Dr Eric Mervyn Lindsay, a local of Portadown who had turn out to be Director of the Armagh Observatory in 1937, till Lindsay’s sudden loss of life in the summertime of 1975. Pat turned the steward of Dr Lindsay’s legacy after his loss of life. He would contribute to each the 1975 Particular Version of the Irish Astronomical Journal and the 2007 Particular Version of the Journal of Astronomical Historical past and Heritage, each of which have been devoted to Dr Lindsay.[4] His articles stay an vital a part of the legacy of the 20th century and kind the very best eye-witness accounts of life within the Armagh Observatory in the course of the Lindsay years. This deep information of historical past was important to the work of the Bicentennial Celebrations on the Armagh Observatory, and Pat took an lively curiosity within the conservation of the historic telescopes, particularly the Troughton Equatorial Telescope which had been on the Observatory since 1795. Determine 4 reveals him within the Troughton Dome after the telescope had been eliminated within the 1980’s.

Determine 4. Pat seated on the western aspect of the Troughton Dome.

In the course of the 1990’s he turned a vital hyperlink between the Armagh Planetarium and the varied splintering beginner astronomy teams on the Island of Eire. He assisted within the curation of shows within the Armagh Planetarium and restored an 8.25 inch Calver reflector which had been donated by the Belfast Boys Excessive Faculty to the planetarium in poor situation. In 2005, on March 17, he retired from the Armagh Planetarium and in December of that 12 months a Minor Planet was named in his honor.

The item had been found by R.H McNaught, the Scottish-Australian Astronomer, who had visited Armagh many instances and met Pat. The asteroid was named “(8515) Corvan” was the quotation for its inclusion reads:

(8515) Corvan = 1991 RJ. Found 1991 Sept. 4 by R. H. McNaught at Siding Spring. Patrick G. Corvan (b. 1940) has hyperlinks with Armagh Observatory courting again to his schooldays.  He’s an avid observer whose enthusiasm for astronomy is instantly communicated to others. His ebook and slide collections, in addition to tales concerning the astronomers who’ve labored at or visited Armagh, are a lot in demand.

Patrick knew 4 generations of Administrators on the Armagh Observatory, and each Director of the Armagh Planetarium. He remained a beneficiant trove of knowledge and assisted the historic analysis of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium with nice vigor and enthusiasm. He was all the time completely satisfied to supply remark and recommend new avenues for analysis, having constructed an encyclopedic information of the Historical past of Irish Astronomy over his lifetime. Even throughout his final observing session on the 1885 10-Inch Grubb telescope in December 2023 he took time to instruct the workers and volunteers who joined him within the finer particulars of utilizing the telescope, and the delicate methods he had employed within the 70 previous years to look after the instrument. His legacy, an everlasting connection to the historical past of the establishment, and the devices, shall be remembered right here by those who had the pleasure of realizing him, and the long run generations who shall be impressed by those self same views of the cosmos on the similar telescopes that he protected and maintained.

[1] Oral Historical past Interview with Pat Corvan by Matthew McMahon (2022)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Armagh Observatory and Planetarium Reference ARM ADM Id20 ‘The Planetarium 1975, A Report by Terence P. Murtagh, Director’. 1975.

[4] Corvan P (1975) Eric Mervyn Lindsay (1907-1974). Irish Astronomical Journal 12: 130–137. And Corvan P (2007) Beneath Irish skies. Journal of Astronomical Historical past and Heritage 10: 179–186.