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Patrick Moore
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Sir Alfred Patrick Caldwell-Moore, CBE, HonFRS, FRAS (born 4 March 1923 in Pinner) known as Patrick Moore, is an English amateur astronomer who has attained prominent status in astronomy as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter of the subject and who is credited as having done more than any other to raise the profile of astronomy among the British general public. He was born to Captain Charles Trachsel Caldwell-Moore MC (died 1947) and Gertrude, née White (died 1981 aged 94).
Sir Patrick was always very close to his mother and she was a talented artist who lived with him at his Selsey home which is still colourfully decorated with many paintings of "bogeys", little friendly aliens, which she regularly produced and were sent out annually as Patrick's Christmas cards.
He is a former president of the British Astronomical Association, co-founder and former president of the Society for Popular Astronomy, author of over 70 books on astronomy, presenter of the longest running television series (with the same original presenter), The Sky at Night on the BBC and a famous figure on British television (such as being the Gamesmaster).
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Sir Alfred Patrick Caldwell-Moore, CBE, HonFRS, FRAS (born 4 March 1923 in Pinner) known as Patrick Moore, is an English amateur astronomer who has attained prominent status in astronomy as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter of the subject and who is credited as having done more than any other to raise the profile of astronomy among the British general public. He was born to Captain Charles Trachsel Caldwell-Moore MC (died 1947) and Gertrude, née White (died 1981 aged 94).
Sir Patrick was always very close to his mother and she was a talented artist who lived with him at his Selsey home which is still colourfully decorated with many paintings of "bogeys", little friendly aliens, which she regularly produced and were sent out annually as Patrick's Christmas cards.
He is a former president of the British Astronomical Association, co-founder and former president of the Society for Popular Astronomy, author of over 70 books on astronomy, presenter of the longest running television series (with the same original presenter), The Sky at Night on the BBC and a famous figure on British television (such as being the Gamesmaster). He is well known for his rapid mode of speech, trademark monocle, poorly fitting blazers, extremely high trouser line and a fondness for the xylophone.
Sir Patrick is also an accomplished composer. He is entirely self-taught in music. His favourite genres include 19th century Viennese waltzes and marches, but he has also turned to ragtime, polkas, and a nocturne. In 1981 he played a xylophone solo in a Royal Command Performance.
Early life
Sir Patrick Moore was born in Pinner in Middlesex and moved to East Grinstead in Sussex, where he spent his childhood. His youth was marked by poor health and consequently he was educated at home by private tutors. He developed an interest in astronomy at the age of six and was elected to the British Astronomical Association at the age of 11. In the Second World War Moore lied about his age in order to join the RAF and from 1940 until 1945 he served as a navigator in RAF Bomber Command, reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant, having received his flight training in Canada where he met Albert Einstein and Orville Wright whilst on leave in New York. The war had a significant influence on his life: his only known romance ended when his fiancée, a nurse, was killed by a bomb which fell on her ambulance. Moore subsequently remarked, somewhat poignantly, that he never married because "There was no one else for me... second best is no good for me...I would have liked a wife and family, but it was not to be."
After the war, Moore eventually set up home at Selsey in Sussex, where he constructed a home-made reflecting telescope in his garden and began to observe the Moon. He was fascinated by the subject and he is now acknowledged as a specialist in lunar observation, one of his particular areas of expertise being the study of the glimpses of the Moon's far side that are occasionally visible due to the Moon's libration. He was also an early observer of Transient lunar phenomena: short-lived glowing areas on the lunar surface.
Television
On 26 April 1957, at 10:30 pm, in an event that was to be a landmark of his career, Moore presented the first episode of The Sky at Night, a BBC television programme for astronomy enthusiasts. Since then, he has presented every episode each month, excepting July 2004, because of a near-fatal bout of food poisoning caused by eating a contaminated goose egg. Moore appears in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-serving TV presenter, by virtue of having presented the show since 1957. Early editions of The Sky at Night were transmitted live and on one occasion he swallowed a fly live on air. Since 2004, the programme has been presented from Moore's home, as he is no longer able to travel to the studios, owing to arthritis.
On 1 April 2007, a 50th anniversary semi-spoof edition of the programme was broadcast on BBC1, with Moore depicted as a Time lord and featuring, as special guests, amateur astronomers Jon Culshaw (impersonating Moore presenting the very first The Sky At Night) and Dr Brian May. This tongue-in-cheek edition of the show included a look-ahead to the state of astronomy in the year 2057, with May recalling his appearance in a disastrous concert on the Moon, in which an accident resulted in an explosion of rocket fuel that sent Queen drummer Roger Taylor into orbit, with accompanying footage of Taylor orbiting the moon, drumsticks still in hand. During the programme, Moore tries in vain to warn his past self to avoid the goose egg that gave him food poisoning in 2004 and expresses annoyance at the late time slot that the show occupies.
On 6 May 2007, a special edition of The Sky at Night was broadcast on BBC1, to commemorate the programme's 50th anniversary, with a party in Moore's garden at Selsey, attended by amateur and professional astronomers. It consisted of a retrospective of highlights from the past 654 editions of the programme, together with Moore reminiscing with guests who have appeared over the past 50 years and who have been influenced in various ways by the programme and by Moore himself. Another special edition, broadcast on BBC4 on 9 December 2007, was a retrospective of achievements in astronomical science during the past 50 years, together with a review of the highlights of "The Sky at Night" in presenting such achievements and the contributions of distinguished astronomers to the programme during those years.
Patrick Moore has undertaken significant research in astronomy. It was revealed in a TV programme that when the Russians wanted accurate information on the Moon over a number of years, they first went to America then other countries for the information but could not obtain such information. Patrick Moore was then suggested as a source of the data and on visiting him at this dwelling, they were invited in. Moore left them and returned with a pile of exercise books with all the necessary information in, his records of observations over many years which is how in 1959, the Soviet Union used his charts of the moon to correlate their first pictures of the far side with his mapped features on the near side and he was involved in the lunar mapping used by the NASA Apollo space missions. In 1965, he was appointed Director of the newly-constructed Armagh Planetarium, a post he held until 1968. During the Apollo programme, Moore was a presenter of the BBC's television's coverage of the moon landing missions. He compiled the Caldwell catalogue of astronomical objects and in 1982 asteroid 2602 Moore was named in his honour.
Moore has written over 70 books on astronomy, all of them typed on a Woodstock typewriter of 1908 vintage, which he has always preferred to any more modern device. After the BBC withdrew financial support, he independently produced a 50th anniversary DVD of his life and work titled 'The Astronomical Patrick Moore'.
Honours and appointments
In 1945, Moore was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1968, he was appointed OBE and advanced to CBE in 1988. In 2001, he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor "for services to the popularisation of science and to broadcasting".
In the same year, he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. In June 2002, he was appointed as Hon. Vice President of the Society for the History of Astronomy. He has also won a BAFTA for services to television.
During a podcast of The Ricky Gervais Show in 2006, he was chosen by Karl Pilkington as one of six people who ought to re-start and educate human life on an imaginary uninhabited planet.
A keen amateur chess player, Moore often carries a pocket set around with him and has been honoured with the title of Vice President of Sussex Junior Chess Association. In 2003, he presented Sussex Junior David Howell with the best young chess player award on Carlton TV's Britain's Brilliant Prodigies show.
Other interests and popular culture
Aside from presenting The Sky at Night show, Moore has appeared in a number of other television and radio shows, including, from 1992 until 1998, playing the role of Gamesmaster in the television show of the same name: a character who professed to know everything there is to know about video gaming. He would issue video game challenges and answer questions on cheats and tips presented in the Consoletation Zone. His appearance differed depending on the show's season (eg. in Season 1, he was an artificial intelligence whereas in Season 5, set in Heaven, he looked like a god).
He also appeared in self-parodying roles, in several episodes of The Goodies and on the Morecambe and Wise show. He had a minor role in the fourth radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and featured in the Radio 1 sci-fi parody, Independence Day UK. He also appeared in It's a Celebrity Knockout, Blankety Blank and Face the Music. He has appeared on television at least once in a film prop spacesuit. Despite believing that there may well be life in other parts of the universe, he has stated that he believes that there has not been any real contact with aliens and he dismisses all theories of the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs.
Until being forced to give up owing to arthritis, Moore was a keen musician and accomplished xylophone player. He has composed a substantial corpus of works, including two operettas. He occasionally performed novelty turns at the Royal Variety Performance and appeared in a song-and-dance act in the 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas special. In 1998, as a guest on Have I Got News For You, he accompanied the show's closing theme tune on the xylophone and as a pianist, he once accompanied Albert Einstein playing The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns on the violin (of which no recording was made). Moore is listed by the Internet Movie Database as the uncredited musical consultant on the 1968 Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey. Patrick Moore was also the subject of a popular internet cartoon entitled "", which appears on Weebl's Stuff.
He is a friend of Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Dr Brian May, who himself is a sometime guest on The Sky At Night. The pair have co-authored a book with Chris Lintott, entitled Bang! The Complete History of the Universe.
His books are mostly non-fiction dealing with astronomy, along with several science fiction novels. His first novels were a series about the first arrivals on Mars, including Mission to Mars and The Voices of Mars, followed in 1977 by the start of the Scott Saunders Space Adventure series, aimed primarily at a younger audience, which eventually ran to six novels. In 1983 he published Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them under the pseudonym R. T. Fishall.
In January 1998, part of Moore's observatory at his home in Selsey was destroyed by a tornado which passed through the area. The observatory was subsequently rebuilt.
Along with many other celebrities, Patrick Moore has been the subject of crank-calls by comedian Jon Culshaw, as part of the BBC Radio 4 show Dead Ringers. On this occasion, Jon Culshaw impersonated Tom Baker's role of the Fourth Doctor (Doctor Who), supposedly consulting Moore on various astronomy-related matters. Moore, being aware of what was going on, confused Culshaw by out-playing him in his use of technobabble, resulting in a rare pause from the comedian as he tried to think of a response.
Activism
Moore is noted for his conservative political views. In the 1970s, he was Chairman of the anti-immigration United Country Party, a position he held until the party was absorbed by the New Britain Party in 1980. He then joined the Conservative Party and later the United Kingdom Independence Party, becoming a long standing supporter and patron of the eurosceptic party. Moore introduced the DVD 'Britain on the Brink', a documentary which, he asserted, exposed the 'truth' that had been hidden from British people about being a member state in the European Union. He opposes the Iraq War, stating: Mr. Bush’s venture into Iraq could have instead paid for the entire space program for quite a few years... I think Bush is certifiable. He’s a danger. If we are not careful he’ll plunge the world into a Third World War. He’s power-drunk you see. If he goes for Iran or North Korea, big trouble! What’s the difference between Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein? Mugabe doesn’t produce oil!
He is an opponent of fox hunting and all blood sports. He has been a lifelong animal lover, actively supporting many animal welfare charities. He has a particular affinity for cats and has two of them.
Personal life
Because of his long-running television career and eccentric demeanour, Moore is widely recognised and has become a popular public figure, even to people with no interest in astronomy. In 1976, this was used to good effect for an April Fool's spoof on BBC Radio 2, when Moore announced that at 9.47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur: Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment which would reduce the Earth's own gravity. Moore informed listeners that if they could jump at the exact moment that this event occurred, they would experience a temporary floating sensation. The BBC received many telephone calls from listeners alleging that they actually experienced the sensation.
Moore joined the Flat Earth Society as an ironic joke, though some have taken this seriously.
On 7 March 2006, he was hospitalized and fitted with a pacemaker because of a cardiac abnormality.
In May 2007, Moore provocatively asserted that the BBC was being "ruined by women", commenting that: "The trouble is that the BBC now is run by women and it shows: soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays. You wouldn’t have had that in the golden days.”
In response, a BBC spokeswoman described Moore as being one of TV's best-loved figures and remarked that his "forthright" views were "what we all love about him".
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