Peter Ross: Scots Astronomer Royal always ready with a star turn

Published on Saturday 4 April 2009 19:57

PROFESSOR John C Brown, the 10th man since 1834 to hold the title Astronomer Royal for Scotland, is standing on the balcony outside his office on the top floor of Glasgow University's Kelvin Building. Squirrels hop on the branches of trees below, while Brown – balding, bearded and bespectacled – points a small golden telescope resembling a Futurist machine gun at the sun.

Glasgow scientists have been making solar experiments for almost 250 years, and Brown acknowledges quite cheerfully that there is a certain dreich irony in trying to examine the sun from the west coast of Scotland. "But we study it these days with X-rays from space, so we don't actually need the weather."

There had been a vague plan to spend the morning looking at sunspots, dark magnetic fields on the sun's surface, but it turns out there have been hardly any in recent years. The good news is this leaves more time for talking to Brown, a fascinating man. The bad news is that it may herald a new ice age and global apocalypse.

We go back into his office, a cluttered space representative of the mind of its occupant. There's a bird skull on his desk; a photo of Einstein on one wall; in a corner there's an ancient computer topped with a bust of Homer Simpson; a battered model of the Hubble telescope dangles from the ceiling. Empty wine bottles line up along a filing cabinet, and in a bookcase are several plump 18th-century volumes.

Brown, 62, admits to being a very left-brained sort of scientist. He is exceptionally good at mathematics, as evidenced by the blackboard covered in complicated equations, and enjoys sucking on a pipe, Sherlock-style, while working his way through chalky algebra. But he also has a strong artistic side, enjoying painting, photography and magic tricks. He has a lecture titled Black Holes and White Rabbits in which he uses conjuring to demonstrate astronomical phenomena. Showmanship is in his DNA. His great-uncle Jim Jackson emigrated to California, where he worked with Buffalo Bill and as a Keystone Cop.

"Some of my colleagues in physics think I'm a bit of a screwball, and what's all this magic nonsense?" Brown says. "But the stars are too far away for experiments, so you have to sit passively and watch what's happening; it's really like watching a magic show. Astronomy is about trying to solve the puzzle of the cosmic magic show."

Brown grew up in Dumbarton. His interest in astronomy developed via The Sky At Night and a friend of his father, whose story has a dark gothic hue. "Eddie Cotogno inspired me greatly. He showed me Saturn through a big brass telescope when I was 10. I lost touch with him, but heard years afterwards that he was murdered."

Cotogno was beaten to death in the attic of his home in Dumbarton in the summer of 1979, a killing police have linked with the infamous World's End murders. He is said to have been an amateur pornographer, and his body is reported to have been dumped on a mattress and strewn with nude photographs of local women.

"He actually taught me to print pictures," says Brown. " I learned it all from him. So here I was up in the attic with this guy, who 10, 15 years later was murdered there. I was completely oblivious to it all. To me, he was just cool, eccentric as anything, and he inspired me greatly. I don't know what sort of things he was up to and I don't particularly care. There was a really good side to him.

"I had dinner three weeks ago in Dundee with his granddaughters. They noticed I had mentioned him on my website, and I got this very emotional e-mail saying it was so good to hear some nice things about their grandad. One of them has still got the telescope I saw through when I was 10."

Brown went on to build his own telescopes while studying at Glasgow Uni. In 1967, during America's summer of love, he landed a temporary job in astronomy at Harvard University – "I remember it was quite hard not to get stoned from all the pot smoke drifting about" – and has worked in America on a number of occasions since. He continues to work with Nasa.

"One reason I got into astronomy is it's essentially harmless," he says. "It's for its own sake. It's one of the few sciences that has no military applications. Maybe it's a bit naive, but it's nice to be involved in something pure and spiritual."

Brown is a great advocate of astronomy, a science that is enjoying a high profile in the year that marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo first looking through a telescope. He is forever touring Scotland's schools, enthusing about the stars, and was recently astonished by a five-year-old girl in Torridon who asked him challenging questions about the creation of the universe.

On April 18, as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, Brown will take part in 2009: A Space Odyssey, an event "for all ages, all experience levels, to show people how easy it is to pop out into your back garden and enjoy things in the sky". Later that evening will be the Big Bang Ceilidh, for which a giant weather balloon will be painted to resemble Jupiter and suspended among the burling revellers.

Brown loves being the Astronomer Royal. When he took up the post in 1995, he created a coat-of-arms featuring his favourite constellation, Orion, and has had a gold ring made bearing this crest. He was surprised to be offered the job, but accepted it, partly, as "one in the eye" for Edinburgh University, whose professors traditionally held the position. He has a bee in his bunnet about Edinburgh and is critical of the council for allowing the Calton Hill observatory to fall into ruin. "This is the building where it was discovered how far the stars are from the earth, and people are using it to doss and piss in. It's a disgrace."

One last question, though. In the course of his work, is Brown ever summoned to discuss stars with the Queen? "No," he laughs. "I've never been asked to cast horoscopes for corgis or anything like that."