In a message dated 9/8/2011 4:35:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, roger.in.eugene@gmail.com writes: Just wondering, what's the reason some of you watch satellites, work related? Purely hobbiest? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Back in the 1960's, the Hayden Planetarium in New York had a telephone service called "Dial-a-Satellite" (TR-3-0404) in which you could call each day to get the latest details on the visible passes of the Echo satellites. I used to ring up quite a phone bill sometimes in getting the details. It was quite addictive. I can still remember, verbatim, the explanation leading into the viewing schedule: "Satellite information is based on calculations from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Times are for the satellite's highest point of passage, but they may be seen for a few minutes both before and after the times given." I also remember getting details on a barium cloud launch from Wallops Island in March 1967 from dialing that phone number. And for about a week in late October 1965, the satellite information was suspended in favor of providing viewing details for Comet Ikeya-Seki. Dr. Thomas Nicholson later wrote in the February 1966 issue of Natural History magazine that while Dial-a-Satellite usually received about 100 calls per day, during the week that the comet info was being provided the number of calls shot up to about 1,000 per day! -- joe rao -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/private/seesat-l/attachments/20110909/f8494089/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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