The Sky at Night (1957)

Patrick Moore presents a retrospective of five decades of The Sky ay Night, recalling the history of space exploration from the first Russian Sputnik, the major astronomical discoveries over half a century, and the people he has met, from Orville Wright to Neil Armstrong.

Dec. 9, 2007, midnight

Using archive sound, satellite footage and film taken by the astronauts, Patrick Moore presents the story of mankind's first journey to another world. The task of telling Apollo 11’s story from a British angle is a challenging one, since most of the domestic television presentation was not saved for the archives. However, Apollo 11, A Night to Remember, part of BBC Four’s Moon Night, has knitted together the remaining material into an effective two-hour documentary. Satellite pictures have been married up with amateur audio recordings, and linked with rarely-seen reports, background films, a couple of rediscovered studio clips, and some new explanatory pieces by Sir Patrick Moore, one of the presenters in 1969. The satellite images, which form the bulk of the programme, cover the main events in America, in the spacecraft, and on the moon. The source tapes are the BBC’s original 525-to-625 line live electronic standards conversions, but because they are derived from an international sig

June 21, 2009, midnight

Dec. 30, 2015, midnight

The planets have fascinated us for millennia, but over the past 60 years our understanding of them has been transformed. Using The Sky at Night archives, Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes us on a spectacular voyage of discovery through our exploration of the planets. From incredible technological achievements, to astonishing phenomena such as epic storms on Jupiter and the stunningly complex rings of Saturn, this is the definitive guide to the planets. And the journey doesn't end at the edges of our solar system. We're now discovering that the Milky Way is full of weird and wonderful exoplanets outside our own solar system. Yet the more we learn, the more we discover how special our own planet really is.

May 17, 2018, midnight

Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. Our solar system sits inside a huge galaxy that we call the Milky Way - home to as many as 300 billion stars. But the Milky Way is itself just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. Over the last 60 years of broadcasting, the Sky at Night has covered every major story of discovery about the galaxies, and in this film presenter Chris Lintott uses this archive to reveal the deepest secrets of galaxies, from their earliest beginnings to their very ends. From the first galaxy ever discovered through to today's cutting edge attempts to map our own Milky Way, this is a story of incredible ingenuity, extraordinary technology and spectacular discoveries. We'll discover how galaxies work - from the secrets of their spiral arms to the dramatic events that drive their evolution - uncovering a weird and wonderful menagerie of objects along the way. Ultimately, the discovery of the galaxies is also the story of how we fo

May 24, 2018, midnight

Chris Lintott opens up The Sky at Night's 60-year archive to reveal how stars work, their life cycles and how their own demise holds the key to our very existence.

April 10, 2019, midnight

Comets and asteroids are the building blocks of the planets, relics from the early days of the solar system. They have been witnessed in our skies for millennia - tantalising, yet too small and too distant to study. However, over the course of the past 60 years, developments in astronomy and space exploration have allowed scientists to now see these tiny, mysterious worlds up close - and the Sky at Night has been there every step of the way. Using the Sky at Night archives, Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes us on a journey in pursuit of comets and asteroids - from ancient history to the cutting edge of modern astronomy, from tales of omens seen in our skies to exhilarating space missions straight out of science fiction. Unlike planets and moons, we only get fleeting glimpses of comets and asteroids, and it’s this rarity that makes these visitors so special. Who knows what the next one will bring us?

Dec. 29, 2019, midnight

Patrick Moore takes a look at the close up pictures of Mars taken by the American Mars probe, Mariner 6.

Aug. 3, 1969, midnight

A celebration of 50 years of The Sky at Night, featuring classic archive and celebrity interviews from fans of the show, including Jonathan Ross, Myleene Klass, Jon Culshaw, Sir Richard Branson, Charles Kennedy and Brian Blessed. They recall their favourite moments of the series and the role Sir Patrick Moore has played in inspiring them.

May 7, 2007, midnight