Sir Patrick Moore

Sir Patrick Moore (Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore),   (born March 4, 1923, Pinner, Middlesex, Eng.—died Dec. 9, 2012, Selsey, West Sussex, Eng.), British amateur astronomer, author, and television personality who brought boundless enthusiasm and an insatiable craving for knowledge—but no formal education—to his extensive astronomical research and his monthly BBC television program The Sky at Night, which broadcast some 700 episodes from April 24, 1957. Moore’s passion for astronomy and his ability to explain complex concepts in layman’s terms helped to introduce generations of TV viewers to the subject, and he also gained fans for his blunt rapid-fire manner of speaking, unruly hair and eyebrows, and idiosyncratic monocle. Moore acquired a love for astronomy as a boy and at age 13 wrote his first scientific paper—concerning the features of a crater on the Moon that he had studied through his backyard telescope. (He pursued lunar research throughout his life and made several significant discoveries about the surface of the Moon.) After a brief career as a Royal Air Force bomber navigator during World War II, he passed on the opportunity to attend the University of Cambridge and became a full-time writer. In 1957—at the dawn of the space age—BBC TV invited him to host its new astronomy program, the last episode of which was aired just days before his death. Moore produced scores of books, including the Caldwell catalog of astronomical objects, which he compiled as a complement to the Messier catalog. Other works include The Amateur Astronomer (1957), Exploring the Galaxies (1968), The Atlas of the Universe (1970), Patrick Moore’s A–Z of Astronomy (1986), Astronomy Before the Telescope (1996), Patrick Moore on the Moon (2000), and two books—Bang!: The Complete History of the Universe (2006) and The Cosmic Tourist (2012)—co-written with the university-educated astrophysicists (and sometime Sky at Night cohosts) Chris Lintott and Brian May, the latter of whom was better known as a guitarist and cofounder of the rock band Queen. Moore was also an accomplished performer on and composer for the xylophone and an avid cricket spin bowler (he titled his 2003 autobiography 80 Not Out). Moore was made OBE (1968) and CBE (1989) and in 2001 was granted a knighthood.