The Sky at Night - Season 2009 - Eps 1: Light Fantastic
This first Sky at Night of 2009 is a celebration of the humble (and Hubble) telescope, which is now 400 years old. It all began with Galileo . . . or did it? Patrick Moore furrows his brow over the news that an Englishman may have invented the first. Over the last 50 years Patrick has visited almost all of the worlds large telescopes, and there is some archive footage of some of these visits. Meanwhile, Chris Lintott visits some mighty examples in the USA, and astronaut Jeff Hoffman describes how he repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. Preparations are underway in NASA's watertanks for the next repair/update mission, which NASA hopes to be the last, because the next space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to succeed it. In a unique visite we get to see how 10m glass mirrors are cast and polished under the Arizona Wildcats Football stadium, and talks about the future of Extremely Large Telescopes.
About The Sky at Night

Title: The Sky at Night
First Air Date: 1957-04-24
Last Air Date: 2024-11-11
Status: Returning Series
Rating: 8.308/10 (from 13 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 45
Total Episodes: 273
Network: BBC Four
Genres: Documentary, News
Production Companies: Unknown
Synopsis
Your monthly journey through the fascinating world of space and astronomy with the latest thinking on what's out there in space and what you can see in the night sky.