The Sky at Night is a long running television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC. It is the longest running television programme with the same presenter anywhere. It first aired in April 1957 and has been broadcast once a month ever since. For forty-seven years it had only had one presenter, Sir Patrick Moore. The program's stirring initial and closing theme music is At the Castle Gate from the incidental music to Pelleas et Melisande by Jean Sibelius.

The programme covers a wide range of general astronomical and space related topics. In the past, general topics have included stellar life cycles, radio astronomy, artificial satellites, neutron stars and many, many others. The programme also covers what is happening in the night sky at the time it is being broadcast. This can be particularly interesting when something less common, such as a comet or a meteor shower, is present.

In July 2004, Patrick Moore was unable to make the broadcast due to a severe bout of salmonella poisoning. He was replaced for this one occasion by the cosmologist Chris Lintott of University College London, but returned for the August programme.

External links

• The Sky at Night website http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spaceguide/skyatnight/