I am old enough to recall watching, on my parents’ flickering black and white TV, Patrick Moore speaking about Sputnik 1 in 1957. More than 50 years later I had the pleasure of participating in the 700th edition of The Sky at Night. Because he was by then rather immobile, it was recorded at his home in Sussex, amid the clutter of mementos and trophies accumulated over his career. It was a boisterously chaotic occasion when Brian May, Brian Cox and I discussed dark matter, black holes and the size of the universe under his benign chairmanship.
Sir Patrick, who