Sir Patrick Moore died Sunday afternoon.

I have watched and enjoyed The Sky at Night for so many years than I care to remember.
A gifted amateur astronomer whose knowledge of the moon greatly helped the NASA Apollo program.

I wonder who they will get to take on the mantle of The Sky at Night?

The same co-presenters that have been on for the past few years of Sir Patrick's declining health, and/or maybe Prof Brian Cox (although he is nore unlikely given existing commitments)

Very sad news indeed John, whoever  presents  The Sky At Night nobody will  have the energy & enthusiasm   of  Patrick  Moore   a true  genius eccentric  &  not to forget musician.

Another icon gone from our screens.

RIP

Greatly missed, I watched The Sky at Night since I was about 10-11 yo as I was
always interested in astronomy and space travel. PM was basically an amateur
who could discuss incredibly complex subjects with leading scientists and
astronomers, eg black holes, binary stars,  comets, exoplanets etc.

Sir Patrick Moore will be greatly missed, I to watched The Sky at Night from an early age starting when the programme was broadcast in momochrome and patrick was a relatively young man. His knowledge and enthusiasm was immedialty evident and his delivery encompassed all from like me absolute beginners to gifted amateurs and Professional astronomers / physicicts.  As previously said an icon and character gone forever.

Geoff

Yes, RIP Sir Patrick. I loved the way he would comment during the Apollo missions, so excited he would be talking at 100 mile an hour, with his shirt collars all turned up and tie askew. He always had that dodgy eye, caused, I assume by spending most of his life squinting through a telescope.

A true gentleman and genius. I for one will miss him, he had been around since I was a kid. It was only last week I was reading an interview with him in an astronomy magazine. A loss for astronomy, that's for sure.

As a small child, I remember being inspired to set up a telescope to project the image of a partial solar eclipse onto a piece of card (I didn't look directly at the sun). My parents took me to Selsey to see his house too.

I also remember a hilarious sequence when his hat kept blowing off his head.

He will be greatly missed. I record all of the Sky at Nights to watch later.

I was lucky enough to attend a lecture he presented at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation back in 1996 (I think). His enthusiasm for the subject was highly infectious - similar to that of the late Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) - and it was clear that everybody who attended the lecture was a huge fan already.

At the time, Abu Dhabi had some seriously dodgy-looking taxis on the road, and his opening line immediately grabbed everyone when he said, "On my way to the Cultural Foundation tonight, I found myself contemplating the fact that it is approximately 400,000 km from the earth to the moon, and that the taxi I was travelling in had done the equivalent of there and back and was halfway on its way back to the moon again!" All the expats could relate to the mental picture of the decrepit taxi crabbing its way done the main street with this huge gentleman in the back! 

He will be sorely missed and yes, I used to watch the Sky at Night whenever I knew it was on. I particularly enjoyed the features on the Voyager Mission.

Some years back I had the pleasure in attending one of his garden parties/fetes at his house in Selsey and met the gent - an honour.

H.

Hey, H,

That must have been awesome. His private observatory at Selsey is well documented. Well done! How'd you manage a private invitation?        

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's my tribute:

On the morning of June 6th this year (6/6/12.... half of 12/12/12, I guess), I was doing a fill-in biology class at my old place of employ (I'm supposed to be retired but am not). I was telling these senior kids how much I hated biology and I was a physicist, and said that there was a transit of Venus occurring while we spoke.

I said that all we need is the clouds to roll back so we could see the damn Sun, and me just to happen to have a telescope in me back pocket, and we'd see it!

Lo and behold, the moment I said that, blue sky appeared, and a fellow Science teacher had taken his own telescope to school and had his class right outside trying to show them the event!

Anyway, I just dropped tools and dragged all these senior biologists outside to see it. Hell, not to happen again for 117 years or something?!

My colleague got it lined up, I stuck a bit of A4 paper behind his telescope, and managed to get this pic on my phone.
[smg id=2828 type=preview align=center width=400]
The paper is in shadow, pointing up at the sky, on the left is the sky, with a few branches and leaves on trees in the school quad. I held the paper in one hand, and snapped my phone with the other.

Venus is clearly visible as the dot across the sun, and if you enlarge or look closely, you can even see sunspots.

I took the opportunity to grab the moment, the students loved it, and I would like to think Sir Patrick Moore would have been at least slightly impressed.

RIP, PM.

This was one of the "things to see" on his list and was shown on the tribute program the BBC broadcast the other night and you doing that for those biologists, who knows what career path or new interesting hobby one or more of them may find.

Well done that man   

cheers John.

Hi,
So, I'm off living in this cave and two of my lifelong GREATS are lost to me 
My two hopes are:
1. that if there is an afterlife Patrick and Ravi find a way of duetting (maybe even playing 'Celestial Trains' together  ) musically speaking of course.
2. The BBC 'do the right thing' by us and Chris Lintott (if he wants to) until at least I join that celestial audience (very  ).

Regards, Gerry