The Sky at Night

Patrick Moore talks about this most splendid of constellations.

Patrick Moore discusses plans for the new Northern Hemisphere laboratory with Dr Graham Smith , director-designate of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Algol, the Demon Star, is now well on view during the evening. Every two-and-a-half days the star seems to give a long, slow ' wink.' Patrick Moore describes this remarkable eclipsing binary and explains its importance.

Astronomy of the infra-red is now vitally important in studies of the planets, the stars and the universe as a whole. Patrick Moore talks about infra-red astronomy to Professor Jim Ring, of Imperial College.

This month the three outermost planets - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - are all on view, even though they are faint. Each has its own special points of interest; and Patrick Moore talks about these remote members of the Sun's family.

A strange force of X-rays from the sky has been discovered by instruments on board the British satellite Ariel-5. What is the object sending them out?

What is the sun made of? To study the nature of the sun, special equipment is needed. At Sevenoaks Commander Henry Hatfield has built one of the very few spectrohelioscopes outside professional observatories, and Patrick Moore joins him there.

Six years ago, in July 1969, the first man landed on the moon. At a major international conference held in London last month, experts from all over the world met to discuss the results of their work on the material obtained by the Apollo missions. Patrick Moore , who took part in the conference, talks to the scientists about some of the new and unexpected conclusions which have emerged and discusses their importance with Professor Geoffrcy Eglinton of Bristol University.

Jupiter's four largest moons - the Galilean satellites - are among the most interesting members of the Solar System. They were discovered by Galileo in 1610 - hence their nickname - and they have been studied by the Pioneer probes; one of them, lo, affects Jupiter's radio emission. Patrick Moore talks about these planet-sized satellites with Dr Garry Hunt , who is involved in all the space missions and gives the latest news about the Viking probe to Mars.

How did the Universe come into being? This is one of the most important and most puzzling problems facing mankind. Recently we have some new information from the depths of space, which may shed some light on the whole. question; Patrick Moore discusses it with Dr John Beckman of Queen Mary College, whose studies of remote objects from balloon-borne equipment have produced interesting results.

We have just seen the brightest nova, or exploding star, for many years - Nova Cygni , which blazed out in the constellation of the Swan and became very bright. Patrick Moore talks about this strange and dramatic newcomer and reports on the research now being carried out by astronomers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux in Sussex.

On 22 October the Russians landed a space-probe on the planet Venus and sent back pictures of the surface which have taken astronomers completely by surprise. Venus has been called the planet of mystery - and these results make it more mysterious still. Patrick Moore talks to Dr Garry Hunt about the new questions raised by these landings.

Is Earth the only inhabited world, or is our civilisation one of many? Patrick Moore looks at some of the stars which could be the centres of planetary systems, and speculates as to which of them could support life.