Brian Marsden

[Outbackmanyep]

A sad day for amateur and professional astronomers alike.

http://www.universetoday.com/79392/astronomer-brian-marsden-has-died/ (http://www.universetoday.com/79392/astronomer-brian-marsden-has-died/)


I never met or corresponded with Brian, but in astronomy circles he was well known for his contributions to cometary and minor planet astronomy.
May he rest in peace.

[astroron]

A sad loss to Astronomy:sadeyes:
Rip Brian

[AstralTraveller]

I, likewise, have never met him but he has been a legend for the 35 years I've been into astronomy. Feeling quite sad now. RIP.

[gary]

Sad to hear of Brian's passing. For many years, he was the heart and
soul of the Minor Planet Center.

I had often thought should the fateful day come in our lifetimes that an object
be detected with some probability of colliding with the Earth and causing calamity,
that suddenly the media would have no shortage of wannabe experts popping out
of the woodwork to offer their pronouncement. In such a hypothetical scenario,
Brian would have been one of a very small handful of people I for one would have
listened to.

[Ric]

From the write-up he sounded like a brilliant man. He will be missed.

RIP Brian

[PeterM]

Oh dear that is really sad news. It is particularly heartfelt as he sent myself and Stu a congratulatory email for one of the BOSS supernova discoveries with a simple "nice work guys".
A massive loss to the astronomical community.

Peterm.

[CometGuy]

This is a very sad loss for astronomy. RIP Brian Marsden.

Terry

[gary]

Rob McNaught kindly directed me to a longer obituary which appears
on the Minor Planet Center web site here -
http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/mpec/K10/K10W10.html

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Yes Brian's death is a very sad day for amateurs and professionals alike. As someone else commented on facebook, it was always a dream of mine that one day an IAU circular penned by Brian would be issued announcing something I'd observed or discovered.

A true gentleman to boot. Astronomy is somewhat poorer without him.


Best,

Les D

[higginsdj]

Very, very sad indeed. He was a stickler for the rules and was an ardent supporter of amateurs and the work amateurs could do in the field. He's one of the reasons the Gene Shoemaker NEO grants exist today for amateurs to apply for.

Cheers

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Further to the sad news that we lost Brian Marsden on 18th November, just a few days earlier Alan Sandage, one of the most influential astronomers of the 20th century died on November 13th. Sandage was well known for his work on galaxies, galaxy classification and structure, cosmology and made the first reasonably accurate estimation for the Hubble Constant – in 1958 he revised down Hubble’s own estimate of his constant from 250 km/sec/mpc to 75km/sec/mpc. That estimate is quite close to the currently accepted value of 71.5 km/sec/mpc. Sandage studied under such luminaries as Edwin Hubble himself and also Walter Baade and published over 500 papers during his working career.

Asteroid 9963 Sandage is named for him.

Another sad loss.


Best,

Les D

[gary]

Hi Les,

Thank you for posting this and sad to hear Allan Sandage has also passed on
so very recently. One of the great astronomers, he helped carry on the work
of his mentor, Edwin Hubble, after Hubble died.

There is an entire class of incredibly bright variable stars named after the
pair, of which S Dor was the prototype. These Hubble-Sandage variables shine so
bright that they can be observed over extragalactic distances, a fitting characteristic
given how brightly these two men shone in their lifetimes.