Allan Sandage was an observational astronomer who was happiest at a telescope. On Hubbles sudden death Allan Sandage inherited the programmes using the worlds largest optical telescope at Palomar to determine the distances and number counts of galaxi
es. Over many years he greatly revised the distance scale and, on re-working Hubbles analysis, discovered the error that had led Hubble to doubt the interpretation of the galaxies redshifts as an expansion of the universe. Sandage showed that there was a consistent age of Creation for the stars, the elements, and the Cosmos. Through work with Baade and Schwarzschild he discovered the key to the interpretation of the colour-magnitude diagrams of star clusters in terms of stellar evolution. With others he founded Galactic Archaeology, interpreting the motions and elemental abundances of the oldest stars in terms of a model for the Galaxys formation. He published several fine atlasses and catalogues of galaxies and a definitive history of the Mount Wilson Observatory.
