NICHOLAS COPERNICUS (1473 - 1543)
Often thought of as one of the pioneers of modern astronomy, Nicholas Copernicus is most famous for shaking up the scientific and religious communities. At the time, it was taught that Earth was at the centre of the Universe. Religious leaders used evidence from the Bible to back up this claim and people accepted this as fact. However, by observing the night skies, Copernicus noticed that the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets didn't really make sense based on the understanding that the Earth was at the centre of them all. But, by putting the Sun at the centre, and calculating the orbits of the known planets, suddenly it all worked. As this could be seen as questioning the teachings of both religious and scientific minds, Copernicus had to be completely certain that his theories were correct and it took a lot of persuasion until he decided to publish them. The book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On The Revolutions of the Celestial Sphered) was published after his death (although it is rumoured that he was given the first copy printed on his deathbed in 1543) and at first it didn't have a major impact. It was only after other scientists, most famously Galileo Galilei, publicly backed the "Copernican System". Church leaders of course opposed a Sun-centred system, and banned Copernicus' book (it stayed on the Vatican's banned list until 1758). Galilei was later arrested for "following the position of Copernicus". 

Copernicus was born in 1473 in Torun, in the old Kingdom of Poland. Although he studied law, medicine, canon and civil law during his years at University, he became interested in astronomy. His career was actually in the Catholic church and he carried out his religious duties devoutly. He never intended to oppose the church in making his theories about a Sun-centred system public - and in fact feared scientific condemnation rather than religious. He worked for the church for most of his life, retiring only through ill health. He was convinced to publish his ideas late on in his life. He died in 1543 after entering a coma from a stroke. It is rumoured that after receiving the first copy of his book, he woke from his coma, saw his book, and then died. 

EDMOND HALLEY (1656 - 1742)
Edmond Halley was an English astronomer, interested primarily in observations of the Moon, the movements of planets, and the laws of gravity. He studied at Queen's College in Oxford, and after graduating, in 1676, moved to St. Helena to observe stars in the Southern Hemisphere. This may have been because he was bored of observing the stars visible from England, or because the weather is better in St. Helena (or even both!). After returning to England in 1678, he published Catalogus Stellarum Australium (roughly translates as Catalogue of Australian Stars. It was fashionable at the time to give astronomical books Latin names, even though nobody actually spoke the language) which detailed the stars he had observed while down under. Although contributing to many other scientific projects, Halley is most famous for predicting the return of Halley's Comet (of course, it wasn't called Halley's Comet at the time!). He looked at details of a comet that had been observed in 1682. He noticed that this comet shared characteristics with a comet that had appeared in 1531 and another in 1607. He realised that these three comets might actually be the same one, and that approximately every 75-76 years it reappeared. He predicted that the comet would reappear again in approximately 1757. Although he died fifteen years earlier, Halley's theory proved correct, and his comet was observed again in 1758, slightly later than he predicted although this delay was due to gravitational influences of Jupiter and Saturn. The fact that Halley was able to predict when his comet would appear meant that scientists could look through older observational records and find out when else the comet had been spotted. They discovered that ancient records from Chinese astronomers from possibly as far back as 467 BC showed that an object that they had observed was in fact Halley's Comet, with many other observations of the same object in between then and now. Halley's Comet is next expected to be visible in 2061 or 2062. As well as his comet, craters on the Moon and Mars and a research station in Antarctica are named after Edmond Halley.

Go here for more information about Halley's Comet!

Date and place of birth: 29th November 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri, USA
Early life and Education: Studied mathematics, astronomy and philosophy at the University of Chicago, obtained his degree in 1910. He later studied law and then Spanish at Oxford University in the UK.
Employment: School teacher and basketball coach at New Albany High School in Indiana. Major during the First World War. Worked at Mount Wilson Observatory in California after the war for the rest of his life, serving in the US Army during World War II.
Main achievements: Discovered that there is more to the Universe than the Milky Way galaxy. While at Mount Wilson Observatory, using what was then the world's largest telescope, Hubble observed galaxies (such as Andromeda) which lay beyond our own galaxy proving that the Universe is much bigger than people thought. He also created groups for galaxies based on their appearances (ellipitcal, lenticular and spiral galaxies). He also discovered that redshift increases with distance. What this means is that the further a galaxy is away from another, the faster it has travelled to get that far. This discovery backed up theories that the Universe began with a "Big Bang" and that it is expanding. Hubble also discovered the asteroid 1373 Cincinnati. 
Landmarks/objects named after Hubble: Asteroid 2069 Hubble, Hubble Crater on the Moon and the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around Earth.
Extra information: While at school and University, Hubble was known more for his athletic skills rather than his academic abilities, setting the Illinios State high jump record. 

SIR PATRICK MOORE (1923 - )
Date and place of birth: 4th March 1923 in Pinner, Middlesex, England
Profile: Astronomer Patrick Moore has had perhaps the greatest influence of anybody on promoting astronomy in Great Britain, passing on his passion for the subject to readers of his books and viewers of his television programme. As a youngster, he was mainly educated at home in Sussex, which is where he read his mother's copy of "The Story of the Solar System" written by G.F. Chambers. The book ignited his interest in astronomy and he began observing the skies with a pair of binoculars. The first object he studied in depth was the Moon. If it's possible to fall in love with planets and moons, Patrick Moore did just that, and the Moon has always been the closest object to his heart. At the age of 11 he became a member of the British Astronomical Association, its youngest member at the time, and 50 years later became president of it! At the age of 14, Patrick Moore became director of an observatory in Hanbury Estate, East Grinstead near to where he lived, after the death of its previous director. It was during this time that Patrick Moore began publishing papers and making maps of the Moon. Despite getting the qualifications he needed to enter Cambridge University (where he would have read geology), the outbreak of the Second World War meant that Patrick Moore instead joined the Royal Air Force - by lying about his age! - and spent the war years as a navigator for the RAF. After the war, and after a stint as a supply teacher in a school in Tunbridge Wells, Patrick Moore began presenting "The Sky at Night" for BBC Television. This programme began in 1957 and has been shown every month since then, with Moore presenting all but one episode. The episode he missed was in 2004 when he had a bout of food poisoning from a goose egg. "The Sky at Night" is a magazine programme which gives information about the objects that can be seen in the sky throughout the month and other astronomical events. It has covered the entire space age, beginning before the launch of Sputnik, broadcasting throughout the Moon landings, and is still transmitting today. The fact that Moore still presents it means the "The Sky at Night" holds the world record as the longest-running television programme with the same presenter. Through "The Sky at Night" and his many fascinating books, Moore has done more than any other to popularise the subject, and has been rewarded for this with a knighthood. During his career, he has had the privilege of meeting some of the most famous names in science and space exploration, including Albert Einstein, Orville Wright (of the Wright Brothers) and first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong. He has also travelled the world to see total eclipses of the Sun, and occurrence which he describes as "amazing". 
Other Information: Maps of the Moon created by Patrick Moore were used by the Russians and NASA when they were planning their missions to send probes to the Moon. During the 1990s, Patrick Moore was the Gamesmaster (pictured right) in the television programme of the same name. Gamesmaster was a video games show in which contestants took part in gaming challenges set by Patrick Moore. He also gave tips and cheats on various computer and video games of the time. Ironically, Patrick Moore doesn't use word processors and computers to write his books, still using a 1908 Woodstock typewriter to do this! Other than astronomy, Patrick Moore is interested in music, creating his own compositions and plays the piano and xylophone, and cricket, having played for the Lord's Taveners.
Links: Sir Patrick Moore's Official Site
The Sky at Night (BBC website)