'The Sky At Night'
How did 'The Sky At Night' begin?
People ask me: How did “The Sky at Night” begin? It wasn't actually my idea. It came from Paul Johnstone, a senior BBC producer, who was a scientist, and had the idea of doing a monthly astronomy program on the line that hadn't been done before. He read a book of mine, thought could be on the air, rang me up to go and see him. So I did and we talked and he said they'd create a program called “The Sky at Night” and put it on the air once every four weeks for three months see how it works out. That was fifty years ago and we're still going. That's how it started.
What are your fondest memories of being the presenter on 'The Sky At Night'?
So much had happened during my 50 years on The Sky At Night. After all, we're now batting on a totally different wicket than we were 50 years ago. We know more about the planets. We know more about everything. I've had some wonderful experiences. We did the eclipse forecasts, been all over the world in the big observatories, and I've talked to some of the leading specialists all over the world, people like the spacemen Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I had wonderful knowledge on the sky at night. Things can go wrong. One time on the program, I swallowed a large fly that buzzed all the way down. And once on the show we had a Russian astronomer, and I'd corresponded with him. He came to the studio, the live studio, and the floor manager found out he doesn't speak any English. What do you do? I asked the question. He answered in Russian. I wrote it down you see he wrote it down like that. I got away with it. How have you been corresponding with him? We've been writing in French which we both spoke.
Do you get a lot of conspiracy theorists contacting you?
I get all kinds of letters on all kinds of subjects. Most of them are sane, and I do answer them all. You always get the crackpots, of course and of course conspiracy theorists. As soon as I get those I look out my window for men in white coats and yellow vans, you always get them. The weirdest of all is when people will say that men never went to the moon. How they worked that up I do not know but you will always get the crackpots. Also bear in mind too, Moore's Law, every nut thinks every other nut is a nut.