THE sky’s the limit for Bangor’s Dr Andy McCrea who has scooped a prestigious award for his exceptional services to astronomy.
Dr McCrea has become only the third person ever to receive the Opik award from the Irish Astronomical Association (IAA).
This distinguished award has only been presented twice in the IAA’s 50 year history, with the last recipient being 21 years ago.
An IAA member for over 60 years, Dr McCrea first joined the Association as a schoolboy with a passion for stargazing – he has served as IAA president eight times and vice-president 10 times.
His life-long passion for studying the stars has taken him around the globe, where he has witnessed 12 solar eclipses. He has also amassed the autographs of over 650 astronauts and met with 16 Apollo astronauts and nine moonwalkers.
As the editor of the Association’s quarterly magazine ‘Stardust’ since 2004, he was well known as the County Down’s Spectator’s ‘Heaven’s Above’ columnist.
Combining his literary talents with his astronomy passion, Dr McCrea recently compiled a brief history of the Association’s 50 year history with contributions from a range of authors.
He is also leader of the North Down and Ards University of the Third Age (U3A) who hold monthly meetings in the Hub in Bangor and observe from a purpose built observatory in Clandeboye estate.
Speaking about his award, Dr McCrea said: “I have been lucky enough to be in the company of brilliant, enthusiastic amateur and professional people and have enjoyed every moment of my time in astronomy.”
Dr McCrea explained the award is named after Ernst Öpik, a noted Estonian astronomer and astrophysicist who spent the second half of his career (1948–1981) at Armagh Observatory.
Said Mr McCrea: “He was born in Kunda, Estonia and studied at the Universities of Moscow and Tartu. His astronomical work was varied and ground-breaking. In 1916 he devised a method of measuring the density of binary stars.
“His sample was Omega 2 Eridani, a white dwarf, which he estimated at 25,000 times the density of the Sun which he dismissed as impossible. In fact this was an underestimate. He also predicted that craters would exist on other solar system bodies including Mars – which was correct.”
Said Mr McCrea: “Later work included the 1922 determination of the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy – with a fair degree of accuracy, and the 1932 postulation of the existence of the Oort cloud, also sometimes called the Öpik-Oort cloud.
“His son Uuno and grandson, former Lib-Dem MP Lembit both lived in Bangor for a period and Lembit presented the award to former winners.”
