An astronomer who worked at Canberra's Mount Stromlo Observatory has been remembered for his lasting local and international legacy.

Peter McGregor died from cancer last week and a funeral will be held for him tomorrow morning at Mitchell in Canberra's north.

Professor McGregor has been described as a rare expert of both research science and technical astronomy.

Professor Matthew Colless paid tribute to his colleague as an "excellent scientist".

"He was a research astronomer who spent his career looking at the formation of stars and also the formation of black holes," he said.

"He was one of those rare people who was a crossover between being a genuinely good research scientist and a really good technical person as well.

"Often you get people who do one or the other, but the people who are the crossovers like Peter are incredibly rare and extremely valuable.

"Because he was good in both areas, he built instruments that other astronomers loved to use because they were put together with astronomers in mind."

Professor Colless said Professor McGregor had built instruments for the international Gemini observatory.

"Peter built two instruments for the eight-metre telescopes, one in Hawaii and one in Chile," he said.

"These instruments use the adaptive optics of the telescopes, which is just a very clever way of removing the effect of the atmosphere, taking the twinkle out of star light.

"That means we can see the stars and other galaxies much more sharply than we can from the ground."

But Professor Colless said Professor McGregor did not get as much recognition as he deserved.

"It is often the fate for people who build instruments, other people use them and get a lot of the recognition and the instrument itself is often forgotten," he said.

"Peter was rather late promoted to a Professor and many of us felt he had deserved that much sooner than when he was granted that title."