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 the budget per episode also increased from £25,000 to £38,000, the pilot and eight other unfinished episodes were extended and re-edited to run for 50 minutes (filling a one-hour commercial timeslot). In the case of "Trapped in the Sky", new footage was filmed during the shooting of "Operation Crash-Dive", which features the return of "Fireflash" and was written as a sequel to the first episode. Among the newly added scenes were the subplot concerning Meddings' boarding of "Fireflash", as well as the first rescue attempt involving the Elevator Cars. "Trapped in the Sky" was first broadcast on ATV Midlands at