Corbally, born near London on Jan. 24, 1946, spent much of his childhood in Wool, Dorset, 45 miles south of Stonehenge. He completed his bachelor of science degree in physics with honors at Bristol University in 1971, his master of science in astronomy at the University of Sussex (Brighton) in 1972 and his doctorate in astronomy at the University of Toronto (Canada) in 1983. His dissertation was a study on the evolutionary status of close visual binary stars as shown by classification of their spectra. His research interests, in addition to multiple star systems, include stellar spectral classification, peculiar and metal-weak stars, galactic structure and telescope technology.

Corbally completed the licentiate in philosophy at Heythrop College, Oxfordshire, in 1968, a bachelor's degree in theology with honors from Heythrop College, University of London, in 1976, and a diploma in pastoral theology from Heythrop College, London, in 1977. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1963 and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1976. He has been a research astronomer of the Vatican Observatory, Vatican City State, since 1983, and is currently its Vice Director for VORG. He was Dean of the Vatican Observatory Summer School at Castel Gandolfo, Italy, in 1988, 1990, 1999, and 2005.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a member of the American Astronomical Society, as well as a member of the International Astronomical Union, for which he is the National Representative of the Vatican City State, vice president of Division IV (Stars) and has served as president of Commission 45 (Stellar Classification). Corbally is a member of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science , for which he has been a vice president, and the president (1999-2002), and currently serves as a council member.

He was project scientist on the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope during its construction and commissioning, and he is an adjunct associate professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson since 1989.

Corbally co-edited three conference proceedings, The MK Process at 50 Years (1994), The Garrison Festschrift (2003), and Exploiting Large Surveys for Galactic Astronomy (2006). He is co-authoring a book on Stellar Spectral Classification.

Research: This centers around the spectroscopy of stars. From stellar spectra, or the rainbows of stars, we can tell a star's 'personality,' as it were. For in these spectra we find the patterns of dark lines where light originating from the center of a star has been absorbed in the outer part of its atmosphere. Some five percent are peculiar -- (just as some people are 'real characters') -- and these peculiar stars can tell astronomers important things about the life cycles of stars -- and even galaxies -- which they might otherwise not suspect.

A small but intriguing group of peculiar stars are those named after their prototype, the lambda Boötis star, the 11th brightest star in the constellation Boötes. These lambda Boötis-type stars imitate the atmospheres of older generation stars in our Galaxy, but are found where the younger stars live. The peculiarities in their spectra are subtle, and high quality data is needed to be sure of their identification. Only some 35 are presently confirmed as lambda Boötis stars, and the jury is still out concerning the origin of their peculiarities.