IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?

All About Space speaks to Stargazing Live co-host and astronomy-mad comedian Dara Ó Briain, who divulges how isolation has revealed the wonders of astrophotography, his memories of the BBC hit show and whether life could be out there somewhere in the cosmos

- Lee Cavendish

BIO

Dara Ó Briain Ó Briain is an Irish comedian, science communicator, TV host and author. He studied mathematics and theoretical physics at University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, before pursuing a career in comedy. His career has seen him co-host the BBC’s Stargazing Live with Brian Cox, and he has written a trifecta of space books aimed at young adults, the most recent one being Is There Anybody Out There?

During the several months of lockdown and social restrictions throughout 2020, have you been able to get stuck into any observing?

Yeah hugely, because now, from what I’ve gathered from talking to the many specialist telescope shops, I’ve been slowly building up my store of small black metal tubes.

It became a very huge thing, because the lockdown had seven weeks of clear skies, so I very quickly took to it. I had a couple of ones [telescopes] that were very small, you know, ones that I’ve had for years, and I thought, let’s just get a proper eightinch CT [Cassegrain telescope] and see what we can see. It was because Venus was up, I think, initially, and then there was the Saturn-Jupiter thing that was a big thing for a while. But I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of doing deep-space stuff now, and that’s a whole other world of pain. But it’s been great. It’s been lovely – to the point where I’m packing up this stuff at three in the morning – and one night, I went: “Oh my God, I’ve got a hobby. I haven’t had a hobby in years.”