The Sky at Night

The Sky at Night Patrick Moore The Sky at Night Patrick Moore Farthings 39 West Street Selsey, West Sussex PO20 9AD UK ISBN 978-1-4419-6408-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-6409-0 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6409-0 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934379 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Foreword When I became the producer of the Sky at Night in 2002, I was given some friendly advice: “It’s a quiet little programme, not much happens in astronomy.” How wrong they were! It’s been a hectic and enthralling time ever since:, with missions arriving at distant planets; new discoveries in our Universe; and leaps in technology, which mean amateurs can take pictures as good as the Hubble Space Telescope. What a privilege it is to work on a programme with such a huge heritage! I am constantly amazed looking back at the flotilla of excellent programmes which have gone out over the past five decades. The Sky at Night has always been at the sharp end of science broadcasting, whether it’s showing the first view from the far side of the Moon or pictures of a new comet which has swept into our sky. Viewers can depend on Sir Patrick to tell them the latest news and explain what it means. It’s an outstanding achievement and Sir Patrick still holds the world record for being the same presenter on the longest running TV programme. Our guests love coming down to Farthings, Sir Patrick’s home. For them, meeting him is like meeting their astronomical hero. Over the past five decades, the Sky at Night has managed to talk to the space scientists and astronomers making the landmark discoveries. No matter how busy they are, they make room for Sir Patrick. We have been privileged to record astronomical history as it is made. For example, when NASA’s spacecraft hits comet Tempel 1, the Sky at Night was given exclusive access to film the astronomers using the Palomar Telescope, thanks to its Director, Professor Richard Ellis. I will never forget the night the Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Professor John Zarnecki, Principal Investigator for the surface science package on board Huygens, gave us the ‘nod’ to set up our camera in the dining room at ESA’s mission control. The world’s media was camped out next to the press room, but we trusted John and moved our camera. It paid off when the astronomers came rushing in to us for an impromptu presentation of the first images of Titan, from a distance of some 900 million miles. Filming the Sky at Night every month is always a challenge. First, there is the set- ting of our main interview with Sir Patrick and the guests. To make room in Sir Patrick’s study for our three cameras and lights, we have to clear much of his furniture and move his work. I always try to make sure that the Woodstock typewriter is in shot. Patrick still uses it for the programme scripts and, of course, his many books. v vi Foreword Secondly, there is the programme budget. I like to remind my BBC colleagues that daytime TV programmes get more money than we do. We do not have the money to commission CGI graphics; instead, we use simpler and much cheaper props to explain complex theories. Professor Fred Watson rose to the challenge when explaining the transit of Venus with a lemon and two hoops. Dr Dave Rothery juggled coloured ping pong balls to great aplomb when discussing the formation of the Solar System. Professors Carlos Frenk and Derek Ward-Thompson resorted to dinner plates to illustrate the grand collision between our Galaxy and Andromeda. When our dear friend Dr Allan Chapman from Oxford comes on the programme, he always steals the show. He managed to cover Sir Patrick in sloppy plaster when creating craters on the Moon. When Health and Safety said he couldn’t use sulphu- ric acid to recreate an historic Robert Hooke experiment about understanding com- ets, he used vinegar instead. The bubbles may not have been as explosive, but they did the job! Another show stealer was comic and impersonator John Culshaw, who became Patrick Moore from the year 1957 for our ‘Time Lord’ programme. Seeing him adopt Patrick’s mannerisms, including the monocle, was quite unnerving. Sir Patrick, in 2007, was more than happy to admit that Patrick Moore in 1957 had got a few things wrong and told him so! There are many people I would like to thank on behalf of the programme. First and foremost are the viewers, who search the schedules for our monthly time slot and stay up late to watch us. Without their loyalty and dedication, we would not have had a programme. There are the amateur astronomers who share images and observations, with their endless enthusiasm and good humour when the clouds role in on our observing sessions; the BBC team who work behind the scenes and who love the show, and put every effort to make it the best science programme that’s all year round. I would like to thank the other man who presents the programme, Dr Chris Lintott. He has been with the programme since 2003, and reports from far flung observatories, asking the astronomers all the right probing questions, and helping me understand the complexities of the Cosmos. Finally, there is Sir Patrick himself. The past few years have been the most excit- ing and most enjoyable period of my career. It’s been a pleasure and honour to work with Sir Patrick. Every time I meet him, I am bowled over by the enormous breadth of knowledge, grasp of the subject and his ability to explain it simply and suc- cinctly. He is a wonderful broadcaster. I look forward to many, many more Sky at Night programmes, with Sir Patrick at the helm presenting the show, reminding us why we should step outside and look up at the night sky. There is a whole universe out there, and Sir Patrick Moore is going to tell us all about it. Jane Fletcher Producer, the Sky at Night Introduction This new book, the Sky at Night series is the 13th – I hope this is not an omen! It covers an eventful period, and I hope that we have managed to cover it successfully. It is interesting to look back to the early days of the Sky at Night; after all, our programme goes back to before the start of the Space Age. There has been one important change. Chris Lintott who helped me join as co- presenter, now plays a more major role than I do – which is exactly how I planned it. Unlike me, he is now a leading research astronomer. It is good to have him with me, and he will still be around long after I have faded from view. My special thanks go to Jane Fletcher (in private life Mrs Segar) for guiding the programme throughout this period, and for masterminding that never-to-be-forgot- ten Fiftieth Anniversary. Well, here’s to the next half-century … Patrick Moore vii About the Author Sir Patrick Moore is one of the world’s leading popularisers of astronomy. He has written more than 100 books and presented his BBC TV programme The Sky at Night every 4 weeks since 1957, making it the world’s longest running television program of any kind. While still in school, he became a member of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) and was later appointed director of Brockhurst Observatory. He served as director of the Armagh Planetarium between 1965 and 1968. He is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (and a Jackson Gwillt medallist), a member of the International Astronomical Union, a holder of the Goodacre medal, and for- mer president and current vice president of the BAA. A minor planet (# 2602) has been named after him. He was knighted in November 2000. He was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society. As the presenter of the record-breaking The Sky at Night series, Patrick was awarded a BAFTA in 2000. The most important research Patrick has carried out has been about the Moon. He is credited with independently discovering the Mare Orientale. He did this with his “traditional” 12½-in. reflector, which still sits proudly in his front garden. His maps of the Moon were among those used by the Russians in 1959 to correlate the first Lunik 3 pictures of the far side. He was also at NASA for the lunar mapping prior to the Apollo missions. Chris Lintott, the co-star of the latest episodes of The Sky at Night, has a mas- sive fan base that derives equally from The Sky at Night and from his paradigm- shifting astronomy website Galaxy Zoo, which has some 150,000 members.

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