No doubt many of you have heard - Sir Patrick Moore passed away earlier today.

He presented the BBC's show 'The Sky at Night', every month for 55 years straight ( with one bout of salmonella causing him to skip 1 episode in more than 700 ). He wrote dozens of books and articles, and typed out replies to just about every letter that he received....

I know Stu and I were both much influences by Patrick's infectious enthusiasm.

Many old episodes of the show are online ( in real-player format unfortunately ) including the hour long Mars special from February 2007 - where yours truly was interviewed by the great man talking about what we amateurs do with imagery from Spirit and Opportunity
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/skyatnight/proginfo.shtml


Pete Grindrod, Chris Lintott and I sat with him during the Phoenix landing - his enthusiasm defied his old age and poor health. A true memory of a life time.

He may well have been the only man to have met Orville Wright, Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong. He even accompanied Einstein's Violin playing on the piano. He outlived them all.

The worlds of astronomy, cosmology and space exploration have lost a gigantic ambassador today.

Next time you go out and see the night sky - have a drink for Patrick. Wherever he is now...that's probably what he's doing

I remember finding his books in my junior high library in the late 1970s. He was VERY influential to me in that he reinforced that I wasn't the only crazy person on the planet who was passionately interested in space.

A life very well-lived. He will be missed, but his work certainly lives on.

... At the Castle Gate ... a beacon ... Sir Patrick, a true memory in exuberance of the cosmos.

RIP Sir Patrick. I first remembered him from way back when I watched the Moon landings. The Sky at Night was an awesome show.

One of the best presents I ever got as a child was a copy of Moore & Hunt's new 'Atlas of the Solar System' (1990), complete with the latest from Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune. What excited me so much was the combination of known and unknown in such close proximity. It was astonishing to me that we humans could know such details about the state of worlds that were often more than a billion km from Earth, but every new piece of knowledge raised further exciting questions, and each new map made possible by spacecraft flyby would have blank patches that might as well have carried the legend 'here be dragons...'

I saw him give a talk at Aldershot in 2000. He was still perambulatory at that point and as enthusiastic as ever. His knowledge of both astronomy and astronomical history was incredibly broad. I doubt many professional (usually highly specialized) astronomers could have matched him on that front.

Myself and Ian O'Neil ( aka @astroengine ) will be on Radio 5 Live in about 15 minutes to talk about our memories of Sir Patrick
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/

An exemplary scientific communicator and broadcaster, and a tireless servant and populariser for astronomy.

He came to speak at my school in '86 about Giotto and the Halley encounter (I was 14 at the time). I was delighted to see that his off-screen persona and enthusiasm appeared to be exactly the same as that we were all familiar with from BBC television.

That's really sad news - Patrick was an indefatigable ambassador for space and space exploration, and a national institution here in the uk.

I too saw him speak during his Halley's comet tour in '86, and can confirm his vast breadth of knowledge across the spectrum, as he took general questions from the audience.

A unique man who will be sadly missed.

Patrick's coverage of Giotto is reprised in this clip from 1986.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9s1ckFZu3Q


I am surprised that after all these years I still physically shuddered when I saw the "fried egg" image from the HMC (1:29). Those of us who anchored live TV shows on the night will not easily forget the terror of trying to explain the surreal blobs to an audience used to Voyager imagery. Patrick's cautious words, in this clip pre-encounter, proved to be just the start of a rather awkward night for commentators around the world.

It was so typical of Patrick to emphasise the positive (the particle and fields experiments which were being interpreted in real time by their PI's)!

RIP

Very sorry to read the news. He published my first maps of Phobos and Deimos in his 1983 Yearbook of Astronomy, giving me the confidence to go on with that kind of work. I have a signed photo of him in my office, looking down on me now.

Phil

I hope the 'Yearbook' continues in Patrick's absence; it's a useful resource and the (sometimes eclectic) articles never fail to be interesting and authoritative.

edit: typo