Schoolboy John Mason looked up the telephone number of the man who fired his interest in astronomy and asked to look through his telescope.

TV stargazer Patrick Moore was only too willing to help and lifted the 12-year-old John up to reach the lens to study the planet Saturn.

More than 30 years later, Dr John Mason is carving out his own successful career promoting space and science worldwide and is widely tipped to be his hero's successor.

He has appeared on TV programmes like Blue Peter and Tomorrow's World, authored or edited more than 70 books and led expeditions to Mongolia, Siberia and China to look at events ranging from eclipses to major meteor shows.

His reputation as an enthusiastic and entertaining communicator this week took him to Northern Ireland for a lecture tour. The event he describes as "my biggest gig" came during a star party staged in Australia when he lectured to 6,500 people.

It was a book about astronomy written by Patrick Moore which first sparked his interest.

Dr Mason, from Barnham, near Bognor, said: "I was given it for my eighth birthday and I was absolutely hooked.

"A few years later, when I was at Chichester High School for Boys, Patrick moved into the area and some Selsey boys told me there was a famous astronomer living in the village who let people look through his telescope.

"I looked him up in the phone book and plucked up the courage to ring and he told me to come round on the next clear night and when he lifted me up to look at Saturn I was completely hooked.

"My parents also gave me incredible encouragement for what must have seemed a pretty wacky hobby such as letting me sit out all night in the garden in a deckchair looking at the sky."

His friendship with the man who inspired him is as strong as ever but he insists he would like to be "the first John Mason and not the next Patrick Moore".

He said: "I think the one thing Patrick will never be equalled for is the enormous influence he has had."

Now Dr Mason is hoping his twin passions for space and science will be rubbing off on other Sussex schoolchildren.

He is a leading member, with the newly knighted Sir Patrick Moore, of a charitable trust building a planetarium in Chichester, which is due to stage its first star shows in the summer.

From September it will host educational visits and open as a major tourist attraction.

Another £40,000 still needs to be found to complete the £360,000 conversion of a building in the grounds of Chichester High School for Boys.

It has been leased to the South Downs Astronomical Trust by West Sussex County Council.

It will also include a science centre named after Sir Patrick.