Stars from the world of show business and science have paid tribute to the UK’s Sir Patrick Moore who died on Sunday.
Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse said he was one of the great science communicators of our time, and his own decision to become a scientist was influenced by Sir Patrick. He described how as a child he attended one of his astronomy talks.
"I literally sat at his feet, listening to every word, and there were a lot of them," he told BBC News. "It was a wonderful experience for me."
Sir Patrick aged 89, "passed away peacefully " at his home in Selsey, West Sussex, friends and colleagues said in a statement.
He presented the BBC programme The Sky At Night for more than 50 years, making him the longest-running host of the same television show.
He wrote dozens of books on astronomy and his research was used by the US and the Russians in their space programmes.
Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees said that despite being an amateur scientist, Sir Patrick was a total professional in his work; "He did his homework; he absorbed new ideas quickly. To a TV audience, he was a 'character' - indeed in the earlier days of science broadcasting the demeanor of a mad professor seemed a prerequisite for media success”
Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Space scientist said: "We all learned astronomy from Patrick Moore, we learned that kind of thirst and joy for knowledge that he had and shared with everybody, the whole of Britain owes its astronomy to Patrick.”
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.
He presented the first edition of The Sky at Night on 24 April 1957. He last appeared in an episode broadcast last Monday.
A statement issued on Sunday 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.
Please view the full BBC tribute on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01psbjf
Also of interest, see if you have observed many of the objects on Moore’s Winter Marathon:
http://astrog80.astro.cf.ac.uk/mwm/
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