Richard Ellis

Leading astronomer Professor Richard Ellis explains how a pioneering generation of scientists used the world’s largest telescopes to understand the history of the universe and witness the time when galaxies first emerged from the darkness.

Ellis says astronomers are like time travellers scanning the night sky for signs of galaxies that came into being long ago. He looks at the astonishing progress we have made in building larger and more powerful telescopes and talks about some of his own discoveries made during a 40-year career travelling the world to conduct his own observations.

Ellis is professor of astrophysics at University College London. He helped in the commissioning of the Isaac Newton and William Herschel telescopes on La Palma and is a former director of the Palomar Observatory in California.