[Siberian Fox]

Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer and broadcaster, dies aged 89

British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore has died, aged 89.

He "passed away peacefully at 12:25 this afternoon" at his home in Selsey, West Sussex, friends and colleagues said in a statement.

Sir Patrick presented the BBC programme The Sky At Night for over 50 years, making him the longest-running host of the same television show ever.

He wrote dozens of books on astronomy and his research was used by the US and the Russians in their space programmes.

Described by one of his close friends as "fearlessly eccentric", Sir Patrick was notable for his habit of wearing a monocle on screen and his idiosyncratic style.

Sir Patrick presented the first edition of The Sky at Night on 24 April 1957. He last appeared in an episode broadcast on Monday.

A statement by his friends and staff said: "After a short spell in hospital last week, it was determined that no further treatment would benefit him, and it was his wish to spend his last days in his own home, Farthings, where he today passed on, in the company of close friends and carers and his cat Ptolemy.

"Over the past few years, Patrick, an inspiration to generations of astronomers, fought his way back from many serious spells of illness and continued to work and write at a great rate, but this time his body was too weak to overcome the infection which set in, a few weeks ago.

"He was able to perform on his world record-holding TV programme The Sky at Night right up until the most recent episode .

"His executors and close friends plan to fulfil his wishes for a quiet ceremony of interment, but a farewell event is planned for what would have been Patrick's 90th birthday in March 2013."
'Father figure'

Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born at Pinner, Middlesex on 4 Mar 1923.

Heart problems meant he spent much of his childhood being educated at home and he became an avid reader. His mother gave him a copy of GF Chambers' book, The Story of the Solar System, and this sparked his lifelong passion for astronomy.

When war came he turned down a place at Cambridge and lied about his age to join the RAF, serving as a navigator with Bomber Command and rising to the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

But the war brought him a personal tragedy after his fiancee, Lorna, was killed when an ambulance she was driving was hit by a bomb. He never married.

Sir Patrick, who had a pacemaker fitted in 2006 and received a knighthood in 2001, won a Bafta for services to television and was a honorary fellow of the Royal Society.

[More on the BBC...]

I don't know how well know he was in the rest of the world, but within the UK he was pretty well know. If you asked a British person to name an astronomer, it would probably have been him.

[GandalfTheGrey]

I only remember him from the goodies.

[Soixante-Retard]

By Ros Wynne Jones

Rave music, a xylophone solo and fried eggs: Mirror girl's memorable night with Sir Patrick Moore



My night with Sir Patrick Moore started with a bottle of whisky and ended with a fry-up, with some rave music and a xylophone solo thrown in along the way.

In 1999, I was sent to interview the great astronomer about the solar eclipse, at his home in Selsey, West Sussex.

We wanted to do some pictures with the night sky in the background, so the interview had to take place after dark.

I arrived at Sir Patrick’s a bit after 10pm, and after we had made a sizeable dent in his whisky bottle, persuaded him it was a brilliant idea to open up the observatory at the bottom of his garden.

The observatory roof was opened by a great big mechanical handle that the photographer and I had to crank open ourselves.

Sir Patrick, who was then in his mid-seventies, had lost his torch and it was pitch dark in the garden. There was a collision with an apple tree that meant we had to lift the great astronomer out of a bush.

What followed was an extraordinary evening. Despite a love of stars, I’d never seen them through a proper telescope. I still remember how beautiful the moon’s Seas of Tranquility were, and Sir Patrick explaining they were where Apollo 11 had landed.

We spoke about the fiancé he lost in the war and how he had never seen the point of marrying anyone else. And about his mother’s drawings of aliens – or ‘bogeys’ – that hung all around the house.

We disagreed vehemently on politics, and then he talked excitedly about the eclipse, including a full Blue Peter demonstration with lanterns and bits of card. It was freezing, and we were wrapped in blankets and duvets.

As the night wore on, Sir Patrick revealed an unlikely love of trance and other kinds of rave music – his nephew, who was living with him while attending university nearby was a dance music DJ.

By dawn, he was blaring trance from the nephew’s massive stereo, Sir Patrick by now inexplicably dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, joining in with fervent enthusiasm on his famous xylophone, eyebrows and sticks flying.

Then he made me a fried egg on toast to go home on, his tip for avoiding a whisky hangover.

I told Sir Patrick it had been one of my best nights out ever. He looked at me sadly, and said: “You don’t get out much do you.”

[youtube]JH9L6VonhQc[/youtube]

[Goldberk]

An entertaining presence, but a racist and misogynist.

[Far-Right Sage]

How so, Goldberk?

Moore has been an admirable figure in the field of British astronomy for quite some time. Surely these achievements override any concern over his social views.

[Goldberk]

I don't disagree, his impact in bringing space to the people was a great positive, his personal opinions were pretty much that, personal, and don't take away from the love of space he gave to many people.

My point was solely that the man and his work can and should be separated.