The buildings where astronomer Sir Patrick Moore mapped the surface of the moon should be listed alongside the rest of the country's historic monuments, say heritage chiefs.

English Heritage wants to protect six domes at the old Royal Observatory, Herstmonceux, which housed some of the telescopes that helped pave the way for man's landing on the moon.

The six domes which stud the Fifteenth Century castle's grounds are part of a group of buildings linked to the post-war communications revolution the organisation wants to preserve.

The domes were built in the Fifties to designs by Brian O'Rorke, famous for his luxury Thirties' ocean liners, after residents said they did not want anything tatty in their part of Sussex.

The six Equatorial Telescopes, named because they were mounted to lie parallel to the Earth's rotational axis, have flint-knapped walls topped by igloo-like copper roofs.

Elain Harwood, an inspector of historic buildings for English Heritage, said the domes were a rarity and the care that went into their design was unusual in scientific buildings.

She said: "You can make something that is supposed to be scientific and functional yet is still a thing of beauty."

However, the copper roofs were never ideal for big astronomical telescopes because they absorbed heat and tended to distort the view.

Despite this, from the Fifties to the Eighties, until the Royal Observatory was forced to close because of light pollution from Eastbourne, Herstmonceux buzzed with activity.

One of the domes was never used, another housed a satellite tracking camera, while in the others were two reflecting telescopes with mirrors and two refracting telescopes with lenses.

The telescopes helped map the earth's moon, were the first to spot an unknown moon orbiting Jupiter and were used to study black holes deep in space.

One of the refractors had earlier helped prove Einstein's theory that light could be bent by large objects when observing an eclipse of the Sun from South America in 1919.

That telescopes, along with the second refractor, are still just about working but the pair of reflectors cannot be used because the copper domes will no longer go round.

Sir Patrick said: "I used them quite a bit. They are very useful telescopes, not the world's biggest, not the best, but closing them down was an act of scientific vandalism."

He has lent his name to a project to restore the telescopes, which the Herstmonceux Science Centre hopes will be helped if the domes get the Grade-II Star listing proposed.

The centre has already won £780,000 from the National Lottery's heritage fund to renovate and regularly use the four main telescopes.

The centre's acting director, John Becklake, said: "It is a beautiful site and a one-off. It is the last resting place of the Royal Observatory."