Professor Michael Burton is the Director of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium. This position brings together running the oldest continuously active observatory in the UK and Ireland with its longest running planetarium. It is a job that embraces fundamental research, education, public outreach, history, heritage and culture within a single organisation.

Educated at Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, Prof. Michael Burton is an Australian astronomer who has worked in Hawaii, Australia, Chile, and even Antarctica as well as Ireland. His primary research focused on the formation of stars within the molecular clouds of our Galaxy.

Of particular relevance for his presentation is that he is the President of the International Astronomical Union's Commission for World Heritage and Astronomy. He is leading on the Astronomical Observatory of Ireland's aspirations to seek UNESCO World Heritage inscription for the three renowned Irish observatories of Armagh, Birr and Dunsink. Earlier this year Birr and Dunsink were placed on the UNESCO Tentative List of Ireland by the Irish Government, a first step on the long road towards full inscription. His talk today will tell the remarkable story of the astronomical endeavours at the three observatories across the long 19th century and their pioneering contributions to the development of the modern astronomical observatory.