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Sir Patrick Moore, OBE, CBE, FRS (born March 4, 1923) is an amateur astronomer, member and former president of the British Astronomical Association, author of over 70 books on astronomy, presenter of the long-running BBC series, The Sky at Night, and a well-known and well-loved figure on British television. He was knighted in 2001.
Moore was born in Pinner in Middlesex, and grew up in Sussex. where he was educated at home because of poor health. It was during this time that he first developed an interest in astronomy.
During the Second World War, he served in the RAF as a navigator in Bomber Command. At the end of the War, Moore continued to observe the Moon using the home-made reflecting telescope in his garden, eventually leading him to become a specialist in lunar observation.
In 1957 he began presenting the television series that made him famous, and which has appeared every month since, making him the world's longest running TV presenter.
In 1959, the Russians used his charts to correlate their first pictures of the far side of the Moon; he was involved in the lunar mapping used by the NASA Apollo space missions. His TV programme has popularised astronomy in the UK and beyond and, through his writing Patrick Moore has influenced several generations of astronomers.
From 1965-1968 Patrick Moore was the Director of the Armagh Planetarium.
Moore's reputation for eccentricity stems mainly from his mode of speech, his trademark monocle, and his fondness for the xylophone. He is an accomplished musician and is not averse to performing novelty turns such as at the Royal Variety Performance and appearing in a song-and-dance act in one of Morecambe and Wise's Christmas spectaculars. Patrick Moore once accompanied Albert Einstein on the piano, whilst Einstein played Le Cygne by Camille Saint-Saëns on the violin. However no recording of the performance exists.
In the early 1990s he appeared as the disembodied Gamesmaster in the Channel 4 video game gameshow Gamesmaster.
Patrick Moore has written the occasional science fiction novel. In 1977 he published the first in his Scott Saunders Space Adventure series, aimed primarily at a younger audience (in a similar way to Asimov's Norby series). This series eventually ran to six novels. In 2001, Patrick Moore discussed his Scott Saunders novels in a notable appearance on the Channel 4 comedy programme, The Pooters, which also featured Charlie Skelton and Alan Connor.
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