December 9, 2012 will be a day that I will always sadly remember.
Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer and broadcaster passed away at age 89

My long time correspondence with my friend Sir Patrick began in the spring of 1960.

He passed away peacefully at 12:25 this afternoon at his home in Selsey, West Sussex. Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born at
Pinner, Middlesex on 4 Mar 1923. Sir Patrick presented the first edition of The Sky at Night on 24 April 1957. He last appeared in
an episode broadcast on Monday.Sir Patrick presented the BBC programme The Sky At Night for over 50 years, making him the
longest-running host of the same television show ever. He wrote dozens of books on astronomy and his research was used by the USSR
and US in their space programmes.Through his regular monthly programmes he was telling us what to look for and what was out there
and that was a real inspiration When war came he turned down a place at Cambridge and lied about his age to join the RAF, serving as
a navigator with Bomber Command and rising to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. But the war brought him a personal tragedy after his
fiancee, Lorna, was killed when an ambulance she was driving was hit by a bomb. He never married. Sir Patrick, who had a pacemaker
fitted in 2006 and received a knighthood in 2001, won a Bafta for services to television and was a honorary fellow of the Royal
Society. His executors and close friends plan to fulfil his wishes for a quiet ceremony of interment, but a farewell event is
planned for what would have been Patrick's 90th birthday in March 2013.