Hi all - Last night being the 40th anniversary of the launch of the world's first weather satellite, Tiros 1, I decided to celebrate by observing this object. So, I ran Quicksat (predictions below), set up my 12-inch reflector pointed at the appointed spot, and there it was. Being a meteorologist who remembers the day when the first images were beamed down, this was a special sighting! I then noticed that another oldie, Telstar 1, was due an hour later. So, once again, with the help of Quicksat and the 12- inch, there it was - this time with the tunes of the instrumental "Telstar" (by a group called the Tornadoes) rolling through my head. As someone on this list called them, these "orbiting antiques" are a thrill to follow! By the way, to keep the information content of these messages up to par, I made some magnitude estimates: Tiros 1 was mag. 8.7; Telstar 1 was 10.8. 2000 Apr 2 SunUT214 1156 H M S Al AziC Dir Mag Dys Hgt Shd Rng R A Dec Name 2 51 21 41 141C 271 7.7 4 412 110 591 1025 -1.8 Tiros 1 3 58 38 52 132C 271 11.0 4 32681491 3693 1132 10.3 Telstar 1 cheers, Rich Keen Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado, USA (39.877N, 105.391W, elev 2728m) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 03 2000 - 06:07:53 PDT