Just off to stay at Sir Patricks Moores House

[radioactive]

Just thought I would mention that myself and several other Astronomers are today going down to Sir Patricks Moores house to visit and stay until Monday. We all belong to the Stargazers Lounge Forum here in the UK We are going to revamp his Domed Observatory whilst we are down there too! mainly to give something back to the great man and to this great hobby in general I will take lots of pictures and keep a record of the work in progress
I thought you may also like to know the next months Sky at Night episode will be number 666 spooky or what
right less than half an hour before we travel better kiss the dogs and feed the wife

[Dennis]

Hi Martyn

That's a fair old drive by UK standards, from Leeds to Selsey. Here in Oz it would be a day trip. LOL!

Hope you guys have a great time and please do post some photos; I'd love to see how it looks now compared to the 1st B&W photos I saw in the books I read some 20 years ago.

Cheers

Dennis

[matt]

That's great, Martyn

I read some of the posts about this on a UK astro website and thought what a kind and fitting thing for you guys to do.

Sir Patrick certainly has done a lot for the cause of astronomy over the years.

Have a great time and pass on our best regards to the great man, should he drop by while you're all on your working bee.

[coldspace]

Sounds great, keep up the good work for this great man. I have a good friend of mine over here who has a photo of Sir Patrick and himself proudly pinned up in his observatory in Brisbane. He got Sir Patrick to come down to our club to do a speech when he was last over here. Pity I was not a member then and missed out on that great moment for our club.

Matt.

[Dennis]

Err...how many astronomers named Matt do we have in Brisbane! LOL! Or, do you guys share that nom de plume!

Dennis

[acropolite (Phil)]

Say hello from all at IIS and while you're there sign him up....

[coldspace]

Originally Posted by Dennis

Err...how many astronomers named Matt do we have in Brisbane! LOL! Or, do you guys share that nom de plume!

Dennis

Must be quite a few here in brissy named Matt. I might start up a thread to find out .

Matt . ( SAS)

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

Yep, I remember the great man from when I was a teenager in Scotland, used to really look forward to his astronomy program. Hope you get to meet him, something to tell the grandkids

Bill

[astroron (Ron)]

Sir Patrick was here in Queensland 20 years ago this year for Expo 88, and gave a talk at the Cultural Centre, also on the bill was Sir Edmond Hillery James Irwin the Astronought, and Professor Wilson Vice Chancellor of Queensland University which I attended.
He Visited the observatory of Peter Anderson and some other amateur groups.
I was not informed by my club at the time this was going to happen and missed out on meeting him, much to my annoyance
I hope you have a great weekend.
Ron

[radioactive]

Well Guys I am back.
Phew what a visit! I have lots of pictures I and every other Astronomer there, has been trying to keep a good record of events taking pictures of Before, During & Now. in respect to the works we have carried out on the Dome observatory. We even managed to cheer up one of his other Obs as well the Roll on Roll Off one We are in fact going back to Patricks to do more re roof and further improve that Observatory in one months time!
I have only been back 20 or so minutes its been quite a journey its now 16.40 British Summer Time I will over the course of this evening sort out some pictures to post and will also try to give a detailed report on how things went on this project. For now I will just report to you that indeed I did meet Patrick (he insisted I call him that.) The man is just a very nice sincere Gentleman with no ideas of Grandeur at all.
Over the course of three nights and two days, I with others,talked to him for Many hours. I explained that I had been a member of this forum for sometime and had posted a thread in connection with my coming to visit.
I asked if it would be okay to send a photographic report in to Ice in Space. His reply was something along the lines of "Of course you may,Explain to the good people of the forum, I am utterly overwhelmed by the kindness of people who I had never met to come along and do such a marvellous job here at Farthings."
Patrick also asked to thank astronomers from all over the globe who have contributed his only misgiving are that because of "Quote" My wretched body now has let me down, and I feel pretty useless in terms of being able to help."
To which we assured him that he was indeed still giving plenty Not least by being a global inspiration to us all!
Okay I need to get unpacked now I will post a more complete report later.

[iceman (Mike)]

Fantastic! Can't wait to see the pictures.

[radioactive]

I will give you just a few little pictures here to let you have a taster so sorry but I am rather tired I have just finished cataloguing some 246 pictures I have managed to upload some onto a storage site but nothing in order I will sort it out in the morning its 1am here now so just a couple of pics and I will sort it when I get up in the morning
in the meantime let me whet your appetites

[matt]

Heartwarming pics, Martyn

I'm sure Sir Patrick was very moved by your efforts.

Please keep us in touch with this project.