Sir Patrick

News is trickling in that Sir Patrick Moore has died during the night. Long known in the United Kingdom as the host of The Sky at Night television show, he was an active amateur astronomer, promoter of the hobby, holder of controversial views about the Moon and an endless enthusiast.

Some of my earliest reading on astronomy were his books such as Guide to the Moon, his books on equipment and techniques and his books about the planets. He was one of the people that got me started in a life-long interest. He later headed up a series of books on techniques that continued to get people interested in the field and was the author of the so-called "Caldwell Catalog", designed as a observing project to interest people in deep-sky objects.