On May 6, 7:02*pm, James Harris wrote:
With the demise of Patrick Moore it seems to me that the soul has gone
out of The Sky at Night. I've given it a few months to try to adjust
to the new presentation but the programme seems much blander. Anyone
else feel the same way?

In his later appearances Patrick had little part to play but it's not
the same without him. Any idea why the programme is so different? I've
been trying to work it out but haven't come up with a clear answer.

OK I've just watched a 1/2 hour version of the programme and tried to
work out what's wrong with it. Here's a summary of what happened. You
may want to skip past the summary. Frankly, like the show the summary
is not very interesting.

Possibly the best available picture of Saturn shown at start
Intro - what will be in the show
Cassini spacecraft
Composition of Saturn - types of gasses
Comments that it looks bland, featureless
A storm on Saturn
Ammonia ice and water ice brought up to surface
'Fascinating but let's see what's happening at the poles'
Movie of polar weather system
Great images - thanks but now time to look at the rings
Ring composition, tiny moons
Shepherd moons leave structures
Earth seen through Saturn's rings!
Alternate views of how old the rings are
Only one viewpoint (briefly) justified, not the other
Quick mention of the moons - a sentence or two about a number of moons
Fountains of Enceladus much better in detail - but short
Now talking about Titan
Atmosphere of Titan - Cassini and Huygens lander
Quick views of many pictures
Radar of surface - methane lakes
Infrared view of clouds
Terrain of Titan, riverbed, seasonal changes
Source of methane - possibly Titan to run out of methane
Done with Titan - now we're back to Earth
Report on Earthcast camera to go on space station
Finished with the camera - now back to Saturn
Specific old refractor telescope mentioned
Now an astronomy club looking at the night sky
Quick talk about looking at Jupiter
Now talking about looking at Saturn again
Outer A ring, Cassini Division, inner B ring mentioned
Rapid swapping between people looking at night sky
Told to look at web site for star charts
A star chart put up but taken away without being explained and not
enough time to read it
Back to the old telescope ... great views - now back to studio
Now we're on Space Surgery
- Question from a 5-year old about Saturn's rings
- Another graphic with no time to read it
- Question about rocks from Mars
- Question about gas giants
Keep your questions coming in
Next month - lives of the stars to tune in then

Whew! Anyone see anything wrong with that?

I can offer a very clear take on what I think they are doing. Alright,
I was taking notes as it went along but look how much they covered in
thirty minutes; that made it tiring to watch and the topics were so
shallow I learned almost nothing.

There was far too much rushing to skim over topics. Talk about dumbing
down. From the topics mentioned it was as if they were talking to
primary school children. I know they are directed in what to say but
Lucie Green in particular seemed scared to spend more than a moment on
any topic. It was more like a survey of topics rather than taking the
viewer into anything interesting. The programme was boring.

By contrast Patrick Moore would sometimes take the viewer on a journey
of discovery. That allowed the viewer to enter into the wonder of what
was being seen and understood. That seems to have gone.

Someone commented on this thread about the target audience being those
who have no interest in astronomy and that seems remarkably apt. At
the moment I feel they are trying too hard to make The Sky at Night
interesting to the masses and ending up making it boring to everyone.

James