Tristan Cools posted: > ... a new outhouse built on the spot where Stegemeyer's used > to be now contains a proper plaque designating it as a historic > site. Fairbanks scientists Neil Davis and Neal Brown visited the > landmark off Miller Hill Road and installed the plaque in > mid-October. > > Early on the morning of Oct. 6, 1957, Stegemeyer was in his outhouse > and all was well with the world. The door was open. As he looked > up in the sky, he witnessed the dawn of a new age. > > "Mr. Stegemeyer said he was just sitting there enjoying the > beauty of the stars twinkling in the sky when he saw a strange moving > star come up out of the west," Davis wrote about his neighbor who > lived west of the University of Alaska. "From its speed and > uniform passage across the sky, he knew it could not be an > airplane, a meteor or any other familiar phenomena." > > What Stegemeyer saw that morning was the Sputnik I satellite as it > orbited the Earth. The following elset of the rocket body was estimated by the late Joel Runes: Sputnik 1 r 28.0 2.8 0.0 4.1 d 1 00001U 57001A 57277.80437500 .00301870 00000-0 97395-3 0 18 2 00001 65.1000 340.3821 0520478 58.0000 306.9536 14.96977024 06 It predicts the following pass, which has the object rising in the west, about 30 min before the start of civil twilight: 6/10/57 01:27 - 06:27 ST J2000.0 EL > 15 Fairbanks Alaska Sputnik 1 r 57001A 1 Bull = 1 Fairbanks Alaska SGP4 Age = 1.8 d Unc = 29 s ( 50%) Src = 9 TIME %I Mvd AZ EL R.A. DEC FE VANG RANGE ALT -------- -- ---- --- -- -------- --------- ---- ---- ----- ----- 05:57:38 98 2.6 279 15 00:02:51 17:22:41 4.9 0.24 904 289 05:58:09 98 2.1 273 22 00:38:04 21:26:32 4.7 0.38 702 296 05:58:29 97 1.7 267 29 01:14:12 24:40:24 4.6 0.54 584 301 05:58:43 95 1.5 260 35 01:50:02 27:04:22 4.4 0.69 512 305 05:58:54 92 1.3 252 40 02:26:30 28:45:53 4.3 0.84 464 308 05:59:03 89 1.2 243 44 03:02:32 29:44:14 4.0 0.96 433 310 05:59:11 85 1.2 233 48 03:38:53 30:02:31 3.8 1.05 413 312 05:59:18 80 1.3 222 50 04:13:06 29:43:04 3.5 1.11 402 314 05:59:25 75 1.4 210 52 04:48:10 28:46:10 3.2 1.14 397 316 05:59:32 69 1.5 198 52 05:22:34 27:13:22 2.8 1.12 399 318 05:59:39 63 1.7 186 50 05:54:54 25:11:50 2.5 1.08 409 319 05:59:46 57 2.0 176 48 06:24:16 22:52:00 2.3 1.00 424 321 05:59:53 52 2.2 167 45 06:50:15 20:24:24 2.0 0.91 445 323 06:00:01 47 2.6 159 42 07:15:53 17:37:00 1.9 0.80 476 325 06:00:10 41 2.9 153 38 07:40:03 14:39:40 1.7 0.69 516 328 06:00:21 36 3.4 147 33 08:03:58 11:25:46 1.6 0.56 572 331 06:00:34 31 3.9 141 29 08:26:09 08:10:25 1.5 0.45 645 335 06:00:51 26 4.5 137 24 08:48:03 04:42:45 1.4 0.34 750 340 06:01:13 22 5.2 133 19 09:08:34 01:14:07 1.3 0.25 893 346 06:01:43 19 5.9 129 14 09:28:01 -02:19:05 1.2 0.17 1098 355 Times are local standard time, which was 9 h behind GMT. To the best of my knowledge, Alaska had not yet adopted daylight savings time. Range and ALTitude are in km. The western sky would still have been sufficiently dark to easily see the object at the predicted magnitude between 1 and 2. Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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