Bottle of ‘Moonshine’ white wine, belonging to amateur astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore. The bottle’s label echoes the design of the film poster for E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, but shows a silhouette of Moore riding a bicycle across the face of the Moon.

Sir Patrick Moore (1923–2012) hosted the BBC’s The Sky at Night for over 50 years, commencing on 26 April 1957. The programme was one of Britain’s longest-running TV shows (and the longest run by the same presenter). In 1969 he was part of the BBC commentary team that described the Moon landings.

He was best known for his popularisation work, and described himself as an amateur astronomer as he never had formal training. However, his astronomical observations were significant in their own right; both NASA and the Soviet space authorities used his lunar atlas to prepare for robotic and crewed missions to the Moon.