Davis was born in March, Cambridgeshire, England, the first child of Hugh Davis, a railway man, and Thelma Carter. He had a brother, architect Christopher Davis,[3] and Richard had two sons, William and Anthony.[3] After falling ill in Italy, he died on 2 May 2016,[4] aged 66, at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. He was survived by his mother. His funeral took place at St Paul's Church, Macclesfield, on 25 May 2016.[3]
Following from his PhD, he became an academic staff member at Jodrell in 1978,[5] and over the course of 45 years[4] he was involved in teaching, research, technical development at Jodrell Bank.[2][4] Undergraduate teaching across physics and astrophysics, as well as supervising postgraduate students.[5]
Davis designed electronics to use the radio-linked Mark II and Mark III telescopes as Jodrell Bank's first phase-stable radio interforemeter, over a distance of 24 kilometres (15 mi). This was used to measure radio source positions to an accuracy of 100 milliarcseconds; it also enabled longer observation times on sources than before, which led to the measurement of radio emission from Cygnus A's parent galaxy.[4]
In the late 1970s he worked on radio links for MERLIN. At the same time he worked with Bernard Lovell and Ralph Spencer on observations of red dwarfflare stars using the Lovell Telescope (then the Mark I) and the Defford 25 metres (82 ft) telescope as an interferometer, which led to an unambiguous detection of YZ Canis Minoris at radio frequencies.[4] He developed a 5 GHz broadband interferometer using the Lovell and Mark II telescopes, with his then-student Steve Padin, detecting radio emission from symbiotic stars and novae.[4] He studied 3C 273 in the 1980s and 1990s.[4]
Davis was Project Scientist for MERLIN, the 32 m (105 ft) telescope at Cambridge, and the upgrades of the Lovell Telescope.[4]
Davis studied the cosmic microwave background with the Very Small Array and the Planck satellite. He was the UK PI of Planck's Low Frequency Instrument, leading the development and construction of the 30 and 44 GHz low-noise amplifiers,[4] as well as leading the UK post-launch support for the instrument.[5] He spent over 15 years working on the Planck satellite.[7]
He authored over 150 scientific publications.[3][5]
References
^"Richard John Davis". Historic Radio Astronomy Working Group. National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
