Stargazing Live BBC2 NOW

[Mr Flibble]

I've enjoyed every episode so far this year.

ISS - good

Pluto - good

Pulsars - good

Dara and Brian - good

Scientist guests - good

Clouds - not good

I'm sure I'll enjoy Tim's spacewalk friday night as well.

[Dixie]

Yep they were back on form tonight.   Must try to get hold of some helium balloons. What fun.  Miss the back to earth extra time.  Full credit to the Beeb for doing this for 6 years - the only broadcaster in the world that would? Even noble try to do some live astronomy.

[Gina]

Yes, I thought it was good tonight too   Very good in fact

[Astroboffin]

Good, apart from Prof Lucie green talking about dead stars, and Ben Miller very stupidly saying that it reminded him of David Bowie......

Was that in bad taste or was it just me who though so, I realise (or hope) he did not mean it like that, but even so......

AB

[theclearskiesofthemoon]

Good, apart from Prof Lucie green talking about dead stars, and Ben Miller very stupidly saying that it reminded him of David Bowie......

Was that in bad taste or was it just me who though so, I realise (or hope) he did not mean it like that, but even so......

AB

I think he said it reminded him of his new album/song Blackstar.

[ultramol]

Well I think the show is to short. They are trying to please everybody and that can backfire. The humor in tonights program especially the helium baloons was very funny but with a serious message. I think the show will appeal to the bloke with a mug of tea on his back step wondering what its all about to the bloke with 2 grands worth of imaging gear in his little dome. We need more programs like this as we allready have the more serious S@N for those who dont like to trivialise our hobby. All in all  I think the BBC have got it about right for the time it is broadcast. Well thats my twopenn'orth worth to this discussion....

[Astroboffin]

I think he said it reminded him of his new album/song Blackstar.

Oh, good, as a big Bowie fan I took it a bit personal.....

AB

[DaveS]

Best of the series by far, and good to see Astrosurf got a slot! Probably the improved weather helped. I do think they need to time this to coincide with the dark of the moon so that people can actually see the DSO stuff.

I still think it's on too late, 8 o/c would be better to catch the younger viewers, and I do wish they hadn't cut two of the Back to Earth slots even though I had to watch the first on iPlayer.

[Hertford Stargazer]

Really enjoying it this year. Would be nice to see a beginners equipment guide for those who feel inspired to take up the hobby.

[DaveS]

Just a quick reminder that there's an extra Tim episode tonight at 9 o/c.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I dont want to be negative and detract from it, but i just aint feeling it this year. It seems to be mainly about the ISS and Tim Peake. I know you guys in the UK are so proud of Tim (being the first official British astronaut............the previous 2 had to become U.S. citizens to go into space......apparently).

Honestly though........its hardly a show about astronomy. Its more like "ISS Live"........or "ISIS Live" as Sky News had it captioned early today, before someone noticed the mistake and quickly changed it.

I did watch the whole of the space walk today and thought it was great to hear a British accent and the fact that Major Tim was such a polite guy.

I loved it that he was asking ground control so many questions to check if he was doing things correctly and telling them that something's up there were not going as smoothly as "when i trained in the pool". I also loved that he could be clearly seen taking so many "selfies'", and making comments every now and then at the start of the space walk about the view.

I really enjoyed watching it. I had the laptop plugged into the big tv and watched it all on NASA TV.

I'll be quiet now.

[K3ny0n]

I dont want to be negative and detract from it, but i just aint feeling it this year. It seems to be mainly about the ISS and Tim Peake. I know you guys in the UK are so proud of Tim (being the first official British astronaut............the previous 2 had to become U.S. citizens to go into space......apparently).

Honestly though........its hardly a show about astronomy. Its more like "ISS Live"........or "ISIS Live" as Sky News had it captioned early today, before someone noticed the mistake and quickly changed it.

I did watch the whole of the space walk today and thought it was great to hear a British accent and the fact that Major Tim was such a polite guy.

I loved it that he was asking ground control so many questions to check if he was doing things correctly and telling them that something's up there were not going as smoothly as "when i trained in the pool". I also loved that he could be clearly seen taking so many "selfies'", and making comments every now and then at the start of the space walk about the view.

I really enjoyed watching it. I had the laptop plugged into the big tv and watched it all on NASA TV.

I'll be quiet now.

The one thing I found really annoying about the live coverage of the spacewalk was the annoying commentator repeating everything he said every couple of minutes!

I think this year Stargazing Live has fallen when a 'major' event in the space world was happening so they just embraced that. I did enjoy Stargazing Live this year and I believe it does so much for the hobby. 

Rob.

[ultramol]

Brilliant program  tonight, never realised how big the ISS was....Marvelous

[astro mick]

Good programme to-night.

Hadfield is really interesting to listen to.

Mick.

[DRT]

I watched the last 30 minutes of the spacewalk live and it was tense stuff! I'm not sure many people could have stayed that calm in the knowledge that a colleague almost drowned following a similar fault not so long ago. A great testament to the courage of these guys and the quality of their training.

I have to agree with Paul on the Stargazing Live thing. I think they could have made time for some astronomy features to balance out the ISS/Tim Peak coverage, especially as we had three or four special episodes dedicated to that only a month ago. Perhaps the cloud that spoiled the first few shows this weekend caused them to change the script and I suppose the lack of clear skies on this year's Stargazing Live is a good reflection of the experience most of us have had over the past few months!

[LukeSkywatcher]

The one thing I found really annoying about the live coverage of the spacewalk was the annoying commentator repeating everything he said every couple of minutes!

I think this year Stargazing Live has fallen when a 'major' event in the space world was happening so they just embraced that. I did enjoy Stargazing Live this year and I believe it does so much for the hobby. 

Rob.

What i found annoying was that Sky News said they would be broadcasting the whole space walk live............yet they just kept cutting into it for a couple of minutes every now and then. I decided to hook the lappy up to the tv and watch it all live on NASA tv. 

Commentator did repeat himself very often. I wish he wasnt there and just left the broadcast between astronauts and ground control.

Another thing that almost annoyed me was the fact that most of the ground control crew were eating and drinking so much around computers and it made me hungry.

I have to say i really enjoyed it though. I actually only watched it because my mother (of all people) wanted to watch it. TBH...........i think she fancies Tim Peake. She also fancies Pete Lawrence (S@N),and has met him once when i introduced them at a star party.

[K3ny0n]

I done the same Paul. I really enjoyed it apart from the commentator guy. 

Rob.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Im not really into this kind of thing and its the 1st time ive actually watched a space walk for any length of time. It wont be the last time i watch one. I must admit that seeing Tim up there and hearing his accent today, in some way made me feel pride in having dual citizenship.

It was weird for me haven been born in Ireland (to an English mother) to feel a sense of pride in seeing the Union Flag and hearing the accent. It was pride non the less and i dare say............slightly emotional.

[Gina]

Yes, I watched some of the NASA web broadcast and enjoyed tonight's SGL.  And I agree the constant repeats from the ground commentator was rather annoying.

[Pompey Monkey]

I read about the first 1/3 of this topic and walked away in despair.

We are a minority interest group. Stargazing Live is an attempt to cater for the general population that has a passing interest in the area of "space". My partner really (and I mean that) enjoyed the relaxed and non-technical language delivery of the astronauts life/story/training/job/risks etc. To be honest, I did too.

If the content of the mini-series was lacking to you, I wholeheartedly recommend the following, highly specialised, resources:

http://www.google.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com

Some of you might even have come across these amazing free sources of information before...

[kirkster501]

Stargazing live this week = TIm Peake/ISS, Tim Peake/ISS and Tim Peake/ISS.

Not to take anything away from Tim and the fantastic Space Station.  But I thought the program was called Stargazing Live and not "The Tim Peake and ISS Show".

Just my two penneth!

[Paul M]

I have or have had an interest in Space for as long as I've been interested Astronomy.

I still watch stuff on youtube about Apollo and even the Space Shuttle (which I was something of a critic of). But I just can't find any interest in ISS beyond being a fun thing to watch in the night sky.

Unfortunately, as daring as these astronauts might be I just can't see the point of them being there. ISS is stuck in a rut. It's a political gesture, a place holder for what is left of manned exploration of space. It is quite literally  going nowhere. A dead end! 

Is it really worth continued risk to life? I've always had the belief that the science being done up there isn't exactly ground breaking stuff and not really getting humanity any closer to real spaceflight. 

Anyway, as has already been said, like it or loath it, it aint any kind of stargazing nor is it even related to the subject.

Stargazing could have been left alone and a special programme put out to cover Major Tim's antics.