A 49 Year Old Rocket...

For maybe the last 5 years or so, it's been one of my goals to see the
Vanguard 1 Satellite. Flipping through my log, I can see seven or eight
times when I've run out to try to see either the satellite or it's
rocket. The difficulty for me is that both the satellite and it's
rocket are kind of dimmish, and to see them required pointing my scope
at exactly the right spot on a decent night and waiting for the object
to pass. Somehow, things never quite worked.
I'm not a big fan of watching hardware in Earth orbit... I've never
bothered to knowingly catch sight of the ISS or the Space Shuttle. I
remember well though, the excitement of the early years of the space
age, when orbiting a bottle cap would have been a major, thrilling,
scientific achievement. Vanguard 1 and it's launch rocket are now the
oldest man made objects in orbit, having been launched on March 17,
1958. I was 8 years old, and obsessed with the early satellites, as
were many others. I'm sure I never saw Vanguard 1 back then... way to
dim for naked eye viewing... but I remember reading about it in "Life"
"The Saturday Evening Post" and "The Weekly Reader."
Tonight, there were no visible predictions on the "Heavens Above"
site for the satellite, but the rocket is going through a series of
fairly bright passes. I printed off a chart last night for a 9th mag.
pass, but then I realized it was well before 10:00pm DST... it doesn't
get fully dark until 11:00 this time of year. Tonight though, a 9.5
mag. pass was predicted to pass just north of a 6th magnitude star in
Libra at 11:07:16pm DST. I went out at 10:30, and almost gave up.
There were high, thin clouds, and the Milky Way was invisible. Still
though, it's Summertime DST, and it wasn't fully dark. I watched the
fireworks display just over the trees on the hill to my East from the
direction of the nearby town of Templeton, IA, and decided to give it a
try. I set up my old C8, set my shortwave on a time signal, and got
things lined up. It was a bit discouraging at first... I had trouble
finding the 3rd mag. star to start my star hop to the 6th mag. star that
the rocket would come close to. Things fell into place though, and the
sky darkened considerably as the minutes beeped by on my shortwave
radio. I'd wondered how fast it would appear to move, and how dim it
would appear. A little mental geometry looking at the path on my
"Heavens Above" chart showed me that the rocket shouldn't zip by like a
meteor, even through my 25mm, 50x eyepiece, but should drift through the
FOV as a moving dot. How bright it would appear, I wasn't sure. 9.5 is
hardly dim for a point source, but this thing has been elusive for me,
and I didn't have a really dark sky. 11:05 beeped by on the radio and I
got aimed and looked into the eyepiece. I clicked my turret up from my
40mm eyepiece up to my 25mm to darken the sky a bit. I was going to be
hampered by light pollution... it was hard to keep my eye in place over
the darkness of the sky through the eyepiece when I could see the grass
I was standing on so clearly. 11:06 beeped by. I slowly followed the
star, keeping it on the bottom edge of the FOV... The rocket should
cross the field from left to right, (reversed in my SCT) as it went from
West to East in the sky. 11:07 beeped by... I counted the beeps
until11:07:16... BINGO!!! An easy dot drifted across, right where it
was supposed to! It took a little over a second, but I wasn't trying to
time it. Normally, I wouldn't think much of a telescopic satellite
crossing my FOV, but this was a 49 year old chunk of HISTORY!
After catching the Vanguard 1 Rocket, I shifted over for a quick
look at M4 in Scorpius. One of my favorite globular clusters, with it's
little "bar" of stars running north-south through it. It was nice, but
tonight wasn't a particularly clear night. ANYWAY, I was happy!
Next, I go for the satellite, and I know now I can DO it! But now,
I gotta go down in the basement and put my scope in it's box.
Tomorrow's a workin' day.
Marty

Very nice story. When I tell people that a satellite is passing and urge
them to wait and see it, the classic reaction is "but its just a dot of
light, its not impressive". But if you tell them stories like yours, I think
they will be more interested. I want to see Vanguard and especially during
an astroparty and describe them all the efforts humans did during the space
race.

Vossinakis Andreas
Thessaloniki, Greece

"Marty" wrote

For maybe the last 5 years or so, it's been one of my goals to see the
Vanguard 1 Satellite.

Another great story from Our Mr. Sun!

Very nice story. When I tell people that a
satellite is passing and urge them to
wait and see it, the classic reaction is
"but its just a dot of light, its not
impressive". But if you tell them stories
like yours, I think they will be more
interested.
Vossinakis Andreas
Thessaloniki, Greece

Thanks Vossinakis. I guess part of the attraction of this project for
me was that it gave me a chance to be eight years old again.
Vanguard 1 was launched back when satellites still looked like
"satellites" do to us older guys... a shiny ball with antennas sticking
out of it. Some of the older guys in here may remember the news stories
that followed Vanguard 1 more than the satellite itself... it was
discovered that the Earth was slightly "pear shaped" as the papers told
it at the time. Actually, it was just something like a 50 mile bulge,
but big news in those early days of the space program.
Now that I've seen the rocket, I'm gonna have to catch the actual
satellite... which I believe Khrushev derided as being a "grapefruit."
Those early years of the space race were often rather humiliating for us
yanks.
BTW, most people who saw Sputnik (which fell out of orbit long ago,)
actually saw it's launch rocket, which was much brighter than the
satellite. I didn't realize that until many years later.
Marty

Another great story from Our Mr. Sun!

Thanks Howard!
The way that thing with the International Star Registry was
SUPPOSED to work though, was that people would have to call the Sun "The
Marty..." Oh well, the best laid plans...
Marty

"Marty" wrote in message
...
For maybe the last 5 years or so, it's been one of my goals to see the
Vanguard 1 Satellite. Flipping through my log, I can see seven or eight
times when I've run out to try to see either the satellite or it's
rocket. The difficulty for me is that both the satellite and it's
rocket are kind of dimmish, and to see them required pointing my scope
at exactly the right spot on a decent night and waiting for the object
to pass. Somehow, things never quite worked.
I'm not a big fan of watching hardware in Earth orbit... I've never
bothered to knowingly catch sight of the ISS or the Space Shuttle. I
remember well though, the excitement of the early years of the space
age, when orbiting a bottle cap would have been a major, thrilling,
scientific achievement. Vanguard 1 and it's launch rocket are now the
oldest man made objects in orbit, having been launched on March 17,
1958. I was 8 years old, and obsessed with the early satellites, as
were many others. I'm sure I never saw Vanguard 1 back then... way to
dim for naked eye viewing... but I remember reading about it in "Life"
"The Saturday Evening Post" and "The Weekly Reader."
Tonight, there were no visible predictions on the "Heavens Above"
site for the satellite, but the rocket is going through a series of
fairly bright passes. I printed off a chart last night for a 9th mag.
pass, but then I realized it was well before 10:00pm DST... it doesn't
get fully dark until 11:00 this time of year. Tonight though, a 9.5
mag. pass was predicted to pass just north of a 6th magnitude star in
Libra at 11:07:16pm DST. I went out at 10:30, and almost gave up.
There were high, thin clouds, and the Milky Way was invisible. Still
though, it's Summertime DST, and it wasn't fully dark. I watched the
fireworks display just over the trees on the hill to my East from the
direction of the nearby town of Templeton, IA, and decided to give it a
try. I set up my old C8, set my shortwave on a time signal, and got
things lined up. It was a bit discouraging at first... I had trouble
finding the 3rd mag. star to start my star hop to the 6th mag. star that
the rocket would come close to. Things fell into place though, and the
sky darkened considerably as the minutes beeped by on my shortwave
radio. I'd wondered how fast it would appear to move, and how dim it
would appear. A little mental geometry looking at the path on my
"Heavens Above" chart showed me that the rocket shouldn't zip by like a
meteor, even through my 25mm, 50x eyepiece, but should drift through the
FOV as a moving dot. How bright it would appear, I wasn't sure. 9.5 is
hardly dim for a point source, but this thing has been elusive for me,
and I didn't have a really dark sky. 11:05 beeped by on the radio and I
got aimed and looked into the eyepiece. I clicked my turret up from my
40mm eyepiece up to my 25mm to darken the sky a bit. I was going to be
hampered by light pollution... it was hard to keep my eye in place over
the darkness of the sky through the eyepiece when I could see the grass
I was standing on so clearly. 11:06 beeped by. I slowly followed the
star, keeping it on the bottom edge of the FOV... The rocket should
cross the field from left to right, (reversed in my SCT) as it went from
West to East in the sky. 11:07 beeped by... I counted the beeps
until11:07:16... BINGO!!! An easy dot drifted across, right where it
was supposed to! It took a little over a second, but I wasn't trying to
time it. Normally, I wouldn't think much of a telescopic satellite
crossing my FOV, but this was a 49 year old chunk of HISTORY!
After catching the Vanguard 1 Rocket, I shifted over for a quick
look at M4 in Scorpius. One of my favorite globular clusters, with it's
little "bar" of stars running north-south through it. It was nice, but
tonight wasn't a particularly clear night. ANYWAY, I was happy!
Next, I go for the satellite, and I know now I can DO it! But now,
I gotta go down in the basement and put my scope in it's box.
Tomorrow's a workin' day.
Marty

You know, Marty, I DON'T want to make you uncomfortable or nervous, or
self-conscious, but when I read your observations like this, I am reminded
of Leslie Peltier, or Robert Burnham Jr...

There have been a LOT of very learned authors in my time, and plenty with
more technical expertise than Robert Burnham Jr. But very few, including
those with more expertise, are able to reach out and TOUCH folks like those
two... AND YOU...

You have a gift... Hope someday to see it in PRINT...

And when you come up tomorrow morning, I'll have some coffee to rejoice in
making it to another day...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.6
Longitude: -112.3
http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21

You have a gift... Hope someday to see
it in PRINT...

Thanks Jan!
Actually, I think Shakespeare can write better than I do, but I
could give Milton a run for his money. You oughta see my latest work:
THE ATTACK OF THE NAZI BRAINEATER COMMUNISTS FROM SEDNA
Nobody else has ever used Sedna before... all the other guys use
Mars. My stuff just reeks with innovative stuff like that. There's no
air on Sedna, so the bad guys hijack weather balloons and kill the
crews. Then the good guys from the Intergalactic Space Patrol blow them
away with fully automatic nuclear powered laser guided atomic grenade
launchers! It's really cool!
Marty

"Marty" wrote

Another great story from Our Mr. Sun!

Thanks Howard!
The way that thing with the International Star Registry was
SUPPOSED to work though, was that people would have to call the Sun "The
Marty..." Oh well, the best laid plans...
Marty

Oh, no, I'm well aware of it; I just thought I could do a "reverse" on it,
too. :-) You'll always be my favorite Sun.

The way that thing with the International
Star Registry was SUPPOSED to work
though, was that people would have to
call the Sun "The Marty..." Oh well, the
best laid plans...
**************************************Marty

Oh, no, I'm well aware of it; I just
thought I could do a "reverse" on it, too.
:-) You'll always be my favorite Sun.

I know, Howard. But this is USENET, and we can't just let things go, no
matter how inconsequential.
Marty

"Marty" wrote

Oh, no, I'm well aware of it; I just
thought I could do a "reverse" on it, too.
:-) You'll always be my favorite Sun.

I know, Howard. But this is USENET, and we can't just let things go, no
matter how inconsequential.
Marty

Then it should be part of the permanent s.a.a. FAQ.

Q. What is the official name of the Sun, our nearest star?

A. "The Marty" (and then supply the link to Sam's website article)


:-)