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What happened to stargazing live during Stargazing Live?

kerrylewis

By kerrylewis
in The Astro Lounge

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kerrylewis

kerrylewis

Posted
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The programme seems to be actually caught out when it's clear outside and virtually ignore it in favour of yet another interview with an ex-Apollo astronaut.

Get outside BBC and show people want can be seen and how to see it.

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Grant

Grant

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I was incredibly disappointed by tonights show. It's supposed to be about Stargazing and there was very little of that. I enjoyed the bits there were but surely the whole premise of the show is about getting people out there actually practicing astronomy?

I fully understand about the need for contingencies but have some footage of people doing stargazing at other times or in other places around the world when/where it was clear rather than a load of stuff about the Lunar landings and robots!

Such a wasted opportunity :(

My wife had to check why I was shouting at the TV at one point :D

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pete_l

pete_l

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The programme seems to be actually caught out when it's clear outside and virtually ignore it in favour of yet another interview with an ex-Apollo astronaut.

Get outside BBC and show people want can be seen and how to see it.

They famously never do any actual stargazing.

I can see that the BBC wouldn't want to "waste" talking to Aldrin - but his stories and anecdotes could be a entire (separate) programme in their own right.

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kerrylewis

kerrylewis

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Agreed Grant. For example: why show a pre-recorded bit by Lucie Green about seeing the moon from Central London when she was outside surrounded by flipping telescopes?? Grrrr....

The pre-recorded segment could be used on another no doubt cloudy night.

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kerrylewis

kerrylewis

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They famously never do any actual stargazing.

I can see that the BBC wouldn't want to "waste" talking to Aldrin - but his stories and anecdotes could be a entire (separate) programme in their own right.

Also agreed - but either don't line him up in the first place, or better still get Buzz Aldrin outside telling us about what he can see and perhaps how it compares with what he saw from space. Now that would be 'live' and interesting!
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Grant

Grant

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Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the buzz bits and found it all interesting BUT, it should not have been put out as Stargazing Live - 80% of it belonged in it's own show....

I could've happily enjoyed an entire program just interviewing Buzz and listening to his stories!

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gajjer

gajjer

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I actually thought it was quite good. Thankfully Brian Cox didn't feel the need to go out to Florida to talk about Apollo. There was some interesting content, though why they use strange objects to represent the earth moon and sun when they have access to digital graphics is beyond me. I'm quite pleased they didn't spend too much time outside. If you are going to show me equipment, do it in the good light of a studio and if you are going to show me what I can see, I don't need to see someone hunched over an eyepiece. And it was nice to have a program where they keep using jittery graphics to illustrate a point.

I look forward to seeing the next couple of nights.

cheers

gaj

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Tim

Tim

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Funnily enough, I don't really enjoy passive learning, TV shows and so on, and as a rule get restless during Sky at Night, Stargazing Live etc, but did find tonights show to be helpful with my family, especially the bit explaining the physics of the eclipse, and I enjoyed this show more than all the others, so far, except for the first show where the meteor went behind the presenter just as he said nothing much was happening :)

However, I really think with just a few more minutes with actual guys and girls with real scopes, they could really kick start amateur astronomy. For instance, the pre-recorded bit about the stolen moon rocks, surely that was ditch-able?

I think the local Stargazing Live sponsored events probably do much more to get people started, we had over 700 at the one down the road last year.

It's not all bad guys, at least there is air time for astronomy on a main stream channel :)

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jimbo747

jimbo747

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I thought it was alright, been watching the cbeebies stargazing thing too with my 3yr old daughter who enjoyed it. Thought buzz was quite a good guest but dara getting shouted down the ear piece to shut him up so cox could talk about the staaaaaaars. Shame they wasted a clear night not chatting to the crowd outside and looking at their kit.

Made me smile the bit where they showed the sun and said its taken with 'just a 70mm solar scope', like you could get one from Argos for £50 or something!

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ronin

ronin

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I have to admit to having forgotten all about it and sat watching and listening to the snooker.

What reminded me of it was the original post to this thread that I read at about 21:50.

Think they should have held it at the normal time of January and simply had the eclipse as a seperate event.

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FLO

FLO

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If it was good or bad FLO sales chat will tell all . 

Good or bad is relative and depends what they want to achieve. As amateur astronomers (and a retailer) we would like them to enthuse people enough to want to observe the night sky. For that they would need to show people stargazing and offer advice on how to get started. But they might have different ideas and focus instead on armchair astronomy and cosmology. 

The traffic to our website is only one indicator of public interest. I have a attached a chart showing the traffic from 1st Feb through to yesterday (before tonight's episode of BBC Stargazing Live). The recent large increase in traffic was people wanting solar eclipse glasses (the small dip between the two peaks was when we temporarily sold out). I will post another chart in a few days showing traffic after Stargazing Live. 

HTH, 

Steve 

post-54-0-97240300-1426720388_thumb.jpg

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Ptarmigan

Ptarmigan

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The programme seems to be actually caught out when it's clear outside

Get outside BBC and show people want can be seen and how to see it.

Totally agree with you !

They have all these contingency plans in hand for when the sky is NOT clear

who would blame them ? !

But when it is clear ! what they need to do is sort out what to do in the case when the gods conspire to defeate it all and actually provide something to gaze upon in wonder !

But then what to do with poor ol' Buzz, that you have spent all this money upon,? - well obviously, record an interview with him (adequately rehersed, which this was, clearly, not ) and show it next time Clarkson drops a wobbly !

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Nathan_Pembs

Nathan_Pembs

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I haven't watched any these this time around, as it's not about stargazing at all.

Having a one year old the bbcs CBeebies channel is on quite a bit haha, they've had stargazing programmes on all week and they've actually been outside at night talking about the ISS fly overs, taking pictures of the moon, explaining the phases of the Moon etc.

Even had presenters from the Sky at Night show presenting some parts, it's been so much better than Brian Cox and the gang

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RichM63

RichM63

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Well, 'Star Gazing Prerecorded' doesn't have quite the same cachet as SGL!

But making a program that just shows clips of folk in a field with a few telescopes doesn't make for interesting viewing either.

Perhaps more about navigation and this is what you might see through various bits of amateur kit would have been more interesting than an interview with a geriatric ex astronaut from 40 years ago (painful to watch).

Still, parts of it were interesting and thankfully not ridiculously over enthusiastic or gushing.

I will aim to watch all the episodes.

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