Catching Vanguard 3
- From: movac5@xxxxxxxxx (Marty)
- Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:56:06 -0600
Some in here may have caught on that I've been "collecting" views of
1950's space junk. Hardly spectacular stuff, but if you were a
spellbound kid during the dawn of the space age, well... you older guys
understand.
Tonight, "Heavens Above" predicted a relatively "bright" 9.2
magnitude pass of the Vanguard 3 satellite. Vanguard 3 was launched
Sept. 18, 1959. It looked pretty much like a satellite is "supposed" to
look... a 20 inch (50.8 cm) polished sphere with several antennas
sticking out. What gave it a rather distinctive appearance was that it
wore a magnetometer in a glass phenolic tube attached to the sphere,
sort of like a sorcerer's hat:
http://library01.gsfc.nasa.gov/gdprojs/images/vanguard_iii.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/f/f4/250px-Vanguard_3.jpg
According to Wikipedia...
"The objectives of the flight were to measure the earth's magnetic
field, the solar X-ray radiation and its effects on the earth's
atmosphere, and the near-earth micrometeoroid environment."
ANYWAY, I decided to go out and catch sight of this little bugger
as it sailed though Aquarius... The moon was BRIGHT, barely past full,
and I almost gave up while I was setting up. I actually had a hard time
finding the water jar of Aquarius to start my starhop a bit further
south to find Theta Aquarii, which the satellite was supposed to pass
just south of at 7:57:27. It took me several tries to find the water
jar, and at one time, some anonymous satellite passed through the FOV of
my finder scope. Must be teasing me... Finally, I managed to find the
asterism in my finder scope, and hopped south to Theta. Then I moved a
little further east, flipped up to a higher power eyepiece to darken the
sky a bit, and waited...
It was a little chilly out at 28 degrees, (-2 C) and I was feeling
it in my fingers. Also, I was having trouble picking up a clear time
signal on my shortwave, and I had to hold it in the air at an odd
angle... I heard the voice say 57 minutes on the shortwave, and started
counting beeps... then, at 7:57:30, a little dot sailed smoothly through
my field of view! BINGO! According to the ground track, Vanguard 3
passed overhead a little south of Lubbock Texas... considerably south
and a bit west of my house in West Central Iowa. I didn't attempt to
follow it... in less than 10 seconds it would disappear into earth's
shadow.
I looked around a bit, but there really wasn't much else to look at
on a full moon night, so I broke everything down and hauled it back into
the house. The scope is warming up now, waiting for me to put it to bed
in it's footlocker.
It was a good night, and I have to admit, sometimes that full moon
IS pretty...
Marty
.
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