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The Sky at Night


GordonD

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The BBC are considering cancelling The Sky at Night. They claim that the programme's future is "under consideration" but now that Patrick Moore is no longer around to defend it chances are they'll ditch it to free up room for yet another cookery show.

Please sign the petition calling for the programme to be retained! There are far too few programmes aimed at an intelligent audience without ditching this one.

The link is http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-bbc-please-do-not-axe-the-sky-at-night?share_id=UjaCQnWaTe&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

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Dear Gordon,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. To cancel the Sky at Night would be a travesty, it has been one of my favourite programmes since I was a boy and certainly helped to get me interested in science.

I have tried to sign the petition but got an error message, I will try again later.

How could the BBC even think such a thing? I am giving serious consideration to unleashing Attitude Adjuster on them. They would not like that.

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Already signed. Without Patrick it's a different animal, but still worth watching.

Does anyone know what has happened to his house ?

Should be a national monument.

Paul

Ah, they can make the 'Big Brother' house a national property, but the home of a national great like Sir Patrick Moore...?

Trivia; do you know that when Sir Patrick was head of The Armagh Observatory he drew up the plans and recommended the actual landing place for Apollo 11? NASA wanted a dfferent site, but his was choosen and he was right. Later moon landings discovered the site wanted by NASA were too soft and Apollo 11 wouldnt have landed on an even level surface, thus they would not have been able to take off again without difficulties.

edited; Now signed. Thanks for bringing this to my [our] attention.

Edited by Black Knight
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they'll ditch it to free up room for yet another cookery show.

Nothing wrong with more cookery shows. :eat:

Just not at the expense of the Sky at Night. I can provide the BBC with a long list of things they could scrap instead. Soaps and reality TV would be at the top.

I have now signed BTW.

Edited by Nigel Heath
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Thanks to those who have signed. However it appears that a warning is needed: today I received an e-mail from Change.org (the hosts of the website) welcoming me plus another from a woman asking me to sign her petition. This seems to be an automated thing once you are on their list and I have unsubscribed from that sort of thing - fingers crossed that this works. Apologies to anybody else who suffers from this - I didn't know this was going to happen. :sorry:

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Thanks to those who have signed. However it appears that a warning is needed: today I received an e-mail from Change.org (the hosts of the website) welcoming me plus another from a woman asking me to sign her petition. This seems to be an automated thing once you are on their list and I have unsubscribed from that sort of thing - fingers crossed that this works. Apologies to anybody else who suffers from this - I didn't know this was going to happen. :sorry:

Not a problem. It's SOP these days. If it's a bother to anyone, it's simple enough to click the "Unsubscribe" link :-).

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HI,ALL SPACE CADETS,

Sorry if this is going to sound wrong, but I find there is nothing worse than rich people, and probably obscenely rich, as would be Brian May,who probably can sit back and watch the royalties roll in, because we, the public, bought his records,

Wouldn't you think someone that rich could do something himself about this, he could no doubt afford to do the show himself, cheaper and better than the BBC no doubt,?

It makes my blood boil, he's going to die eventually so what's the point of being the richest man in the graveyard? He said exactly the same on TV last week about badgers being killed, being caught and killed. He was complaining that once caught,they should be vaccinated instead of being killed?

So if he was that bothered, why not give up a weeks interest and pay a vet to vaccinate them instead of whinging. There's nothing worse than people who can make a difference expecting the rest of us to do it so they can still be rich and feel good though,

So all hail Prof Brian May, the richest astronomer in the graveyard? i suppose not a bad epitaph?

Cheers Don

I mean I would have more credulity for the guy if he had some bottle to do what he wants us mere mortals to do, I'm sure if Brian May went to the BBC and said I'll do it...I'd have more respect?

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Don,

I think your Brian May rant is a bit unjustified. I do not like the music of Queen or particularly agree with his stance on badgers but he clearly has a love and passion for science and was a good friend to Patrick Moore which was mutual. He may well be rich but he has worked for his money so good luck to him I say. As I said I don't like his music but I do have respect for him as a human being with a love for astronomy.

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HI NIGE,

youv,e totally misunderstood what ive said? he can do something quick,and probably not even miss it,instead of inciting others,why oh why ,do so called stars just not do something,instead of shouting,its so easy?

Don

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Signed, thank you.

I believe his house is still owned by Brian May, who hopes to make it a museum of sorts. I believe that will be subject to Patrick's memory being maintained by the BBC. Let's hope they do their job properly.

This project has I believe been thwarted for some reason and will now not go ahead

Link to article in daily mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424797/RICHARD-KAY-Sir-Patrick-Moore-shrine-ditched-Queen-guitarist-Brian-May.html

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Don, I believe there was talk between the BBC and Brian May about just that, but "it didn't work out", as they say :). We can only speculate as to why, but as he's famously tight-lipped when he wants to be, we're unlikely to ever know.

He's a strange sort, and although I'm a huge fan of his guitar playing (his playing was the reason I started), and respect him for the way he helped Patrick, his preachiness on some subjects casts him in a somewhat negative light.


This project has I believe been thwarted for some reason and will now not go ahead

Link to article in daily mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2424797/RICHARD-KAY-Sir-Patrick-Moore-shrine-ditched-Queen-guitarist-Brian-May.html

Ta for the info!

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Ayup All...

Petition signed.

As to Brian May, He OFFERED on Newsnight LIVE to talk to the NFU or whichever Govt dork was on the programme to try and sucker us all into thinking Badgers were evil, about him personally paying for Badgers to be vaccinated at the end of the programme. I saw it,

The powers that be were already backing away from that offer quite quickly as the credits rolled. No doubt there are too many Tory- voting-trigger-happy sweethearts who like to kill things for fun to appease.

As to the Sky at Night, I knew as soon as Patrick Moore died, and those strange new presenters came along that its time was almost up. I hope not, as when that music starts I get goose bumps. and Im not a Sky watcher by any means. It's about time Higher-brow subjects were defended on telly, and more Xfactor crap boycotted.

Edited by Fea
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As to the Sky at Night, I knew as soon as Patrick Moore died, and those strange new presenters came along that its time was almost up. I

Virtually all of those "strange presenters" had been making regular appearances on The Sky at Night for almost a decade before Sir Patrick died.

Indeed, since about 2000, the programme had essentially been presented by Dr Chris Lintott with Patrick just doing small link bits and interviews from his home. He was more or less house bound for the last ten years of his life and the programme could not have been made without the help of these "strange presenters" you refer to.

The current version of the programme works quite well - although I think there are too many presenters now and it could do with trimming down a bit.

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My university degree is in Astrophysics and back in the day (early 80s) Patrick used to be a guest lecturer on the course every year and in the last 2 years of my time there it was my privilege as President of the Astrophysics society to take Patrick to lunch at the pub opposite the Uni (Queen Mary College, Mile End Road innit guv!) He was a brilliant drinking companion and I spent several very enjoyable lunchtimes talking about Cricket and Astronomy with him.

Over the years I've seen many familiar faces on the programme from my time at Uni, lecturers, professors and as the years went by fellow ex-students who carried on in academia studying astrophysics, so to loose one of the few science programmes that doesn't treat the audience as attention-deficit retards would be a huge loss. For gods sake its only on once a month, surely that can't be stretching the BBC's budget strings all that much?

Much respect to Brian May who helped Patrick so much in his later years.

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Kallisti,

I am very jealous of you, when he was alive if I was asked the question "Who would you most like to meet?" I would have answered Patrick Moore without hesitation. Now I will never have my chance.

It must be an age thing but a lot of my heroes are no more: A C Clarke, Iain M Banks, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Isaac Asimov, I could go on.

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Oh dear Eric !

And me not knowing the difference between the robot and Robbie either...

What I'm saying is that regardless of other, ahem, 'Satellite' presenters, and I'm not knocking them either, Patrick Moore WAS The Sky at at Night'. the draw. his loss has pulled down the programmes cachet, and it is about (probably) to be lost in the general scientific Mish-mash that seems to be the Beebs policy on scientific programming. We should all fight that.

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