I'm looking forward to this one - Chris Lintott went to visit JPL and ASU - interview with Steve as well....must-see viewing for all UMSF fans I would say.

NOTE SCHEDULE CHANGE....
BBC 1 : 00:05 on Sunday 4th February. Duration: 40 minutes (i.e. technically Monday AM)
BBC 4 : 19:00 on Monday 5th February. Duration: 1 hour ('Directors cut' version)

Doug

Any chance someone could record this and make a DVD?

No problem - email your postal address and I'll sort you out.

Doug

Its a fairly good bet that this programme will be included on one of the free CDs that come with Sky at Night Magazine in the coming months. Have we anyone here who can confirm this? Might save dozens of us making recordings.

They might struggle to fit them on - given that it's usually 20 mins and these are 40 or 60....might be worth asking over at the S@N forum http://forum.skyatnightmagazine.com/

Doug

I've got a free disc with the special 40 minute Hawaii giant telescopes episode, plus other material, on.

They are at quite low resolution, but past episodes of The Sky at Night can be viewed here. They are usually posted a couple of weeks after airing in the UK.

James

Updated the times - it's being put on a 0005 - a couple of hours later than the previously advertised.

Doug

REALLY?!?!?!?!?! No, you must be mistaken Doug, because that would mean the celebrity-challenge-obsessed BBC was treating its longest-running, internationally-respected, flagship science program like c**p, and showing utter disrespect both for its viewers and the intelligence of the viewing public, and surely they'd never do that...

In our TV-guides it shows airing time as 01:05 AM ( I'll be awake for sure )

The Radio Times online website is showing 12.05am

When I started searching on Digiguide - it had the earlier time...but the first time it appeared on the BBCs listings - it was 0005 UK time

AND an episode of Top Gear as well Good nights TV!

Doug

The Freeview Electonic Programme Guide also lists it at 5mins past midnight UK clock time. The one-hour version is on BBC4 on Monday at 7.00pm and on Tuesday at 1.00am (ie late Monday night).
-Rob

The suspense is killing me...how was it?

It was very good, with some images that will be familiar here and a nice contribution from Doug.

Your El Dorado images made it in

Doug

It was so cool to see our Doug's telegeny!

He deserves a show of it's own!
Should we pool this out?

One of my school reports from when I was about 7 said "Douglas's talents on the football pitch might be better suited toward commentating"



Doug

Speaking of football (sorry Tesheiner)...POR-TU-GAL!!!

Doug, did you recorded it?

Ustrax, I'm sorry but you have no chance.

Yes - but obviously, the law stops me sharing it over the web

Doug

Here is a version of the animation shown on the programme, illustrating the transformation of my Duck Bay panorama from raw stretched jpegs to finished image.



James

Totally OT...

Sorry, Tesheiner, you were saying?...

It should come online eventually :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spacegu.../proginfo.shtml

Not sure if that will be the 40 or 60 minute version - but both have a bit of Doug in them.

Doug

Rerun on BBC-2 this Saturday noon

Were these made to commemorate 50 years Sky At Night ?
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/att...475-stamps2.jpg

Yup

Waaw, pitty these don't mention Sir Patrick Moore... was there ever a post stamp with his portrait on it?

Doug, how did You get in contact with the Sky at Night presenter?

Actually - they contacted me.

Doug

Very cool, and quite a considerable honor...congrats, Doug, you'll be a knight before you know it!

As a Yank, I never heard of this program until this thread; a 50-year run is incredible. AFAIK, only some of the network political discussion shows over here can come even close to this...my respect for the BBC has exponentially increased!

Well - the BBC is funded in a strange way - it's basically a mandatory subscription - everyone pays about £130 a year for a 'TV licence' and the majority of it goes straight to the BBC. There is an increasing ammount of pure crap on television - but three programs make me very happy to pay the licence fee. The Sky at Night, anything by the BBC Bristol Natural History unit ( i.e. 'Planet Earth') - and Top Gear

Doug

For Americans and others who may not know -
Patrick Moore is a truly iconic figure in the UK. He is also highly approachable and remains innocently oblivious to the aura of celebrity that has inevitably accumulated around him. He would not want his picture on stamps when you could have a wonderful planetary nebula instead. He is on first name terms with members of many, even quite small, astronomy societies across the country. He has visited hundreds to give talks and open new amateur observatory facilities, from garden shed size upwards. He answers letters from children asking about the man in the moon. He is also a walking encyclopedia of astronomy and (at least on scientific matters) a beacon of down-to-earth common sense. Doug has already referred to his extraordinarily infectious enthusiasm (It could be gardening and you'd still be hookedIIRC). We shall not see his like again.

Correct replies I would say ... congrats to Doug as he really did an outstanding job on TV and once more thanks for maintaining the UMSF forum.

Very true. I once went to see Patrick Moore give one of his musical concerts - he's a very accomplished composer and a xylophone player - and during the interval there was, inevitably, a group of local journos all ready for interviewing him. However, before they could pin him down Sir P was approached, very sheepishly, by a young boy who asked him if he could help him with his homework, and of course he said yes... I'll never forget seeing the great man - dressed uncharacteristically in a gleaming white tuxedo jacket and bow tie, with his hair looking unusually neat (and that's said with great affection, it's not an insult, Brit readers will know what I mean! ) huddled in a corner talking to the young boy, leaving all the journalists kicking their heels while he attended to something obviously more important to him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A13785816

Wow. Thanks to you all for illuminating this man's character so touchingly. There is genuine, incredible affection evident here, and that's an exceedingly rare thing for a public figure...he must be someone pretty special indeed.

Read a few of his books as a youngster here in the US (when I could find them in local libraries), but that's really all I knew of him....glad to learn more about him, especially because it's all good in a very fundamental sense. Thanks again!

EDIT: Thanks, ngunn; took another look, even "Moore" impressed!!! What a life indeed...

If I can add a "me too"...

Back when Halley's comet was last paying us a visit, I was a TV cameraman at the BBC in Manchester, and part of my job was working on a Saturday morning kids' show presented by an affable presenter, Mark Curry.

As a fan of all things astronomical, I was delighted that Sir Patrick would be dropping by to answer some questions in a spot (invariably) constrained by time.

A few minutes before we went live he came into the studio - looking as dishevelled as ever - and Mark said that he had ten questions ready, and that they'd got fifteen minutes before the next cartoon was due to run. Looking over the questions, Sir P. said, "You don't need to ask me those - just ask me this..." and he went on to say, if I remember rightly, something like "Patrick, Halley's comet is in the skies - could you tell us about it please?"

Cue the interview: Mark asked the suggested "question", and - as anyone who's seen Patrick will guess - he began to talk enthusiastically, knowledgably, inspirationally and (of course) speedily, for the next fifteen minutes. Since the show was clearly in a safe pair of hands, feedback from the gallery went unusually quiet while all listened in. As the fifteen minutes were coming up - Sir P. at full flow and having not been interrupted once - the silence in my headphones was broken with the director's comment: "Drop the cartoon".

Andy

Just watched the extended edition on my PC. Great show taking a look at past, present and future missions. The thing I liked most was the rolling ExoMars protoype being shown to Steve Squyres

For this week only, Top Gear isn't completely off-topic for UMSF...

Have you seen the trailer showing what looks like a winged Reliant Robin strapped to an external tank and two SRBs? Can't wait...

Looks like a laugh - I though last weeks US special was a work of genius.

Doug

Okay. OT for sure, but what exactly is Top Gear? Sounds like you guys really like it, and it appears to be a show that features cool inventions, but not too sure of that from the context... ...please enlighten!

EDIT: Never mind, and wow!

http://www.topgear.com/content/features/st...ories/03/1.html

Just a little car program that's loved by about 4 million people and hated by the rest in the UK

Doug

Sounds a bit like this Car Talk program on the radio here in the U.S. IIRC, the hosts call themselves Click and Clack, or something along those lines, and they offer a lot of interesting programming. Including, once, a "phone call" from a crewman on a Shuttle flight that was then on orbit!

That was a really cool call -- the astronaut (I know his name, just can't remember it right now) started out saying he was having some problems with this government-issue truck. It was "one of those Rockwell trucks," he said. It started out running real loud and real rough, and you'd swear it was going to shake itself apart, but after about two and a half minutes, it smoothed out a lot and got a lot quieter. Problem was, it always seemed to run out of gas after running only six and a half minutes or so. That was OK, he said -- he could usually then just coast to wherever he was going.

One of the hosts figured it out pretty quickly, and his first question was to ask where the guy was calling from. Still being cagey, the astronaut said "About two hundred miles away from Hawaii." The host said "Above Hawaii?" and the astronaut, bursting into laughter, managed to say "Yep!"

It was a classy experience...

-the other Doug

yes, top gear is one of the few programs I watch. And I don't even care for cars. Unfortuntely te sky at night is a bit past my bedtime :-)

PETROLHEADS!!!!!!!!!!

In 2004, somebody called in to Car Talk to ask how to winterize his electric vehicle. The guys asked him some standard questions, including what it cost, and he said "about 400 million dollars." It was one of the JPL engineers. It was pretty funny -- Click and Clack were a little confused. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a transcript or a clip anywhere online.

--Emily

Heh, heh, heh....we need to find someone on NH to call in about winterizing THAT vehicle for 2015 & beyond...