Patrick Moore in the 1950s; Moore argued against Lord Dowding and other UFO proponents. He was invited to present a live astronomy programme and said the greatest difficulty was finding an appropriate theme tune; the opening of Jean Sibelius's "Pelléas et Mélisande" was chosen and used throughout the programme's existence. The programme was originally named "Star Map" before "The Sky at Night" was chosen in the "Radio Times". On 24 April 1957, at 10:30 pm, Moore presented the first episode about the Comet Arend–Roland. The programme was pitched to casual viewers up to professional astronomers, in a format which remained consistent from
Trapped in the Sky judged by Anderson and Gray to be tonally unsuitable and was replaced two weeks before the first broadcast of "Trapped in the Sky" in September 1965. Gray recorded the incidental music in December 1964, at the Olympic Studios at Barnes, London, with an orchestra of 30 instrumentalists. "Thunderbirds" was originally due to have a 25-minute episode running time; this was doubled at the instruction of Lew Grade, Anderson's financial backer at distributor ITC, after a preview screening of "Trapped in the Sky". Praising the plot and special effects, Grade commented, "That's not a television series, that's a feature film!" With