Moonwatch Volunteers, 1965
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Download IIIF ManifestRequest permissionsDownload image PrintVolunteer satellite trackers in Pretoria, South Africa, for Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Moonwatch Network, one of more than 100 teams worldwide. Volunteers used the "fence method" of observing the sky. Each observer covered a small, overlapping portion of a specific sky quadrant, and watches for the passage of the satellite in his telescope. The instrument used was the Moonwatch Apogee Scope, a 20 power telescope with a 5-inch objective lens. The Moonwatch teams backed up an optical network of 12 Baker-Nunn tracking cameras.
Historic Images of the Smithsonian
Featured in TORCH, December 1983
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371, Box 4, Folder: December 1983
Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu
1965
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South Africa
96-960
Color: Black and White; Size: 10w x 8h; Type of Image: Group, candid; Medium: Photographic print