Hi All Saw Teds message re the above when catching up on my mail today. I was able to observe the APOLLO 11 mission with the 20 inch reflector and 26.5 inch refractor at the Republic Observatory, South Africa where I was working at the time. Full details of the observations made on two successive nights were published in a report put out by BELLCOM ( I think) which detailed all the observations they had collected( about a hundred page document). I should still have my copy somewhere but will have to hunt for it. The tracking data was supplied by BELLCOM and was "spot on" - several objects were seen in the area and it was possible to identify which was which on the two nights from their optical characteristics. I am not sure, at the moment, if I saw any further APOLLO missions - I recall trying some but bad weather prevented such. The Royal Observatory in Cape Town was able to observe the APOLLO 13 mission if memory serves me correctly. I believe they got photographic positional data. The person who did this was the late Wally Grimwood - I doubt if there is anyone left at the Royal Observatory ( now S.A.Astronomical Observatory) who will remember this as it was a long time ago... If memory also serves me correct I seem to recall that Mike McCants observed an Apollo mission with an 18 inch refractor ( correct Mike ? or am I talking bull? was the telescope at Gransby ? in Mass .USA(?) ). Further optical reports on Apollo observations will be found in the publications of the Western Satellite Research Network (WSRN) that used to be run by North American Aviation but ceased operation many years ago - top lights in this organisation were such people as Jim Williams ( I think he is now/was at JPL?) etc. If anyone wants further info please contact me and I will dig up the BELLCOM report and possibly some WSRN reports. It always amuses me that people doubt the Apollo missions took place. When I was still working at the S.A.Astronomical observatory as an Astronomer one of my more "exciting" duties was to deal with public enquiries/letters etc and of course the public produced weird and wonderful theories about the universe etc and how astronomers were hiding the truth from the world about mysterious planets heralding the end of the world etc - we would try and reason with them but nothing we could say would convince them we were not " part of the conspiracy" to hide the truth. Some people believe anything and are not prepared to use common sense... Cheers Greg ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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