CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF SKY AT NIGHT

11 May 2007

ENGINEERING NEWS (press release), South Africa
TechTrack - Dr Kelvin Kemm
11 May 2007

On April 24, the world-famous amateur astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore, held a party in his house in the small town of Selsey, in England, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his TV series, The Sky at Night. This programme is in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-running TV series in the world.

I telephoned Moore to congratulate him and, as usual, he said how much he would like to come to South Africa again but that he is not very mobile any more. A couple of years ago, he had a knee-replacement operation, which hit him rather hard.

I have known Moore for years and I have great admiration for him. He has managed to take an esoteric subject like astronomy and present it in such a way that it becomes a popular household attraction for young and old.

Moore has written close on one hundred books now, and all of them are beautifully written and illustrated, such that the whole family can gain value.

His Atlas of the Universe which is a really impressive production, contains a photograph taken by me, and credited to me, of the Tswaing Meteorite Centre, just outside Pretoria. It is one of the largest such craters in the world and I took Moore there once when he visited Pretoria.

Just recently, my son went to England and stayed in Moore’s house for a few days. They have been friends too since my son was a little boy and he and Moore would look at the sky together from my garden in Pretoria.

Well, while my son was with Moore, a couple of fellows from the BBC pitched up for an appointment to start writing a script for a BBC documentary to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. They were all in the lounge and the one BBC fellow said: “Sir Patrick, to get started, can you tell me more about some of the interesting people you have met.”

Sir Patrick started something like: “Well, there was the time when Einstein was playing the violin and I accompanied him on the piano; then I had tea with Orville Wright, the first man to fly a powered aircraft. Then, of course, I had discussions with the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, and later [with] the first American to orbit the earth, John Glenn. Then I discussed moon landings with the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, and . . .” The BBC man laughed and said: “Well, yes, but let us be serious now, I need to write this script.”

Moore said acidly: “I am being serious – I met them all, and I have only started.” In one lifetime, he has met the first man to fly, the first in space, and the first on the moon.

Moore also played cricket for the local team until he was in his seventies. He told me that he was a bowler and did not do too well as a batsman. Well, okay, one can’t be excellent at everything; however, he also composes music.

I have one of his CDs of his compositions played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. When the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War Two was celebrated with a large ceremonial military parade in London, Moore was asked to write a new march for the parachute battalion, which he did. It was played during the march. Besides the piano, he also plays the xylophone, which he played for Queen Elizabeth at a royal command performance.

The British Post Office has just brought out a commemorative set of postage stamps for his anniversary, which is an honour that is accorded to very few people.

When my son came home from England, he had one odd story. He said that, in passing, Moore had said that his latest book, which has now just been published, had been written together with a rock star who used to play in a band.

That sounded odd and I dismissed it until, a couple of months ago, I opened a local newspaper, to see an item announcing that Moore had just written a new astronomy book together with Brian May, past lead guitarist and songwriter of the star rock band Queen. Brian wrote We will rock you that Sun City used to use in a TV ad.

Well, it turns out that May is actually Dr Brian May and he has a doctorate in astrophysics. He used to do his physics and play the guitar on the side until he joined Queen. He was studying reflected light from interstellar dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the solar system . . . and then Queen became famous and left him no time for physics and astronomy. Now, Brian has gone back to astrophysics and plays the guitar on the side. By the way, the book is called Bang! The complete history of the Universe. There is a website too – banguniverse.com.

You might see photos in news-papers and magazines of Moore celebrating this fantastic achievement, and, if you do, you will notice that he is never smiling. He told me he refuses to smile for photos because, if he did, he might look like past Prime Minister Edward Heath and that would be too terrible.

I have this weird image of May playing his guitar at Moore’s star-studded BBC astronomy party. I imagine Moore would be smiling!

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