I wonder whether the Artemis II crew spotted the Ellison crater on the far side of the moon?
The Ellison crater, a lunar impact crater on the far side of the moon measuring 36.99 km in diameter, was named in 1970 in honour of Mervyn Ellison, a former science master at Sherborne School
Mervyn Archdall Ellison FRAS (1908-1963) was a solar astronomer of international repute who studied solar flares and their terrestrial effects. The third son of Canon William Frederick Archdall Ellison FRAS (1864-1936), himself a distinguished amateur astronomer and Director of Armagh Observatory, Mervyn was educated at the Royal School Armagh and at Trinity College Dublin, from where he graduated with a first class honours degree in experimental physics.
In September 1933 Mervyn Ellison was appointed to the teaching staff at Sherborne School where he was put in charge of the Army and Navy class and in February 1941 formed the Sherborne Flight No.617 of the Air Training Corps, which he commanded from 1941 to 1944.
During his time at the School, he built a solar observatory and a spectrohelioscope (after the design of George Hale, with castings produced by Petters of Yeovil and metal work constructed in the School workshops) with which he observed solar flares in hydrogen alpha light and on 25 July 1946 obtained a superb spectrum of a great flare over a giant sunspot.
Having served during the Second World War as a scientific advisor to the Admiralty Operational Research Group at RNAS Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire, in 1947 Mervyn was appointed Principal Scientific Officer and Deputy Director at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. Eleven years later, in November 1958, he was appointed Senior Professor in the School of Cosmic Physics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and Director of Dunsink Observatory, Dublin.
Mervyn Ellison was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS) in 1938 and served on its council from 1940 to 1950. He was made a member of the International Astronomical Union in 1946, and in 1948 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 2017 Mervyn’s son donated his father’s astronomical notebooks to Sherborne School where they are now held in the School Archives.
Find out more about Mervyn Ellison and the M.A. Ellison archive
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Posted 7 April 2026 by Sherborne School Archives