RIP Patrick Moore

Just been announced that astronomer Patrick moore has died aged 89. He presented the Sky at Night for over 40 years, and wrote numerous books. He was also the Gamesmaster on channel 4, and his astronomy research was used by both the US and russian space agencies.

And of course:

Over 50 years, in fact.

RIP, Sir Patrick.

The world's lost a man of fantastic intelligence, but more than that a magnificent character.

His legacy will live on through his work on the Sky at Night and his independent research.

Sad news indeed - though on a News-related point, does anyone know why the BBC News Channel seems to rate Piers Morgan, of all people, as a source for Twitter tributes? ISTR they quoted him when Clive Dunn passed away, as well.

David

A truly incredible man who should never be forgotten; a champion of amateur astronomy and how their work is important to professional astronomers.

Maybe because he works for CNN.

The BBC News website use of Twitter comments is starting to really grate on me, and I feel it devalues the rest of their content. IMHO the only time they should be using them is when one of the parties directly linked to the story posts one (like the footballer hit by a coin today). Anybody else's thoughts is just irritating, like the complete random who'd tweeted "Level crossings are death traps" and ended up with is posted on the BBC News article about the level crossing incident near Doncaster during the week.

Surely if they wanted Piers Morgan's opinion, they could have just rung his agent and asked for it, although I get the feeling halfway through dialing the number, the journalist probably would have gone "hang on, what am I doing? Nobody want's to know what morgan thinks" and put the phone down.

Because it's quick, cheap and easy. Why make things more complicated than they have to be? Twitter offers a direct link to a person's opinion and, in my opinion, using it to illustrate a news story is no different to quoting a publicly released statement. If I'm right, Chris Lintott's tribute was lifted from Twitter, as was Brian Cox's.

With regard to your point about complete randoms, fair enough, but again, how are they any different to voxpop talking heads on the street? In these DQF Daily-Mail-fearing times for the BBC, maybe lifting quotes from Twitter is an easy way to fend off criticism about their use of our licence fee monies.

Off topic, but by the way, level crossings are only death traps if you're an idiot.

Or if the barriers break and fall on your shoulder, like happened to someone I know.

I'm not usually terribly impressed when a regional newsroom follows up a national story, adding nothing to what has already been reported.

However, full marks to BBC South last night, who paid their own tribute to Patrick, and used their own archive, with vox-pops of Selsey residents recorded yesterday.

There was poignant sign off from Roger Finn at the end of the bulletin too.

Indeed. It was very nicely done.
I was going to watch it again on iPlayer as I wasn't fully paying attention, but it seems they don't put their weekend bulletins up.

From the way Roger spoke, I assume he may have met Sir Patrick at some point.