Word: moonwatch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Moonwatch teams have been alerted to watch at dawn and dusk for a "rumored" new Russian satellite to be launched on next Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory announced yesterday...
Each of the Observatory's Moonwatch teams has about 14 members, who have been oriented to watch for a satellite coming from the northeast or southeast horizons...
Naked-eye observation is not of much use for plotting the satellite's orbit, but the Smithsonian's Astrophysical Observatory at Cambridge, Mass, got a few accurate reports from Moonwatch teams that were organized to observe the still-grounded U.S. satellite. These data, digested in 21 seconds by a big computer at M.I.T., gave a pretty good orbit for the satellite. It is elliptical, carrying Sputnik to an apogee (high point) 583 miles above the earth and bringing it down to its perigee (low point) 143 miles up. Since both these distances are added to the radius...
...worked through the night in the white glare of searchlights to adjust rooftop radio aerials to pick up the pulse beat. Coolheaded scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass, got on the long distance phone to alert amateur astronomers across the U.S., pulled the switch on Operation Moonwatch, the skygazing network the U.S. had set up to track its own unborn earth satellite. Other Smithsonian scientists sorted and fed into an electronic brain the fragmentary reports from moonwatchers, observatories and radio hams...
American "moonwatch" observes got their first sight yesterday of the rocket accompanying the Soviet satellite on its trips through the upper...