Ok we all know Sputnik could be seen with the naked eye but official confirmation, how was Sputnik officialy confirmed to be in orbit? And how long was it in space?
Official? Do you mean the official announcement from the Kremlin, or do you mean the fact that the U.S. (and any halfwit with a crystal set) could detect the radio signals it emitted?
Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, and fell back to Earth on January 4, 1958. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
Sputnik-1 had two radio transmitters (20 and 40MHz) and its flight lasted for six months
I ask because I’m working on clearing up some historical information. I’m doing a little research for an historical society. Actually they are asking about “first visual records” meaning photos. The claim is that this site was the first North American site to officially photograph Sputnik. Kind of obscure but it’s what I’m asked to do.
This confirms what I have but which is it really this date or six months, as six months would mean April not January.
Check your library for Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, by Paul Dickson. It went pretty thoroughly into the hysteria of the first few days.
I’m having a hard time imagining anyone in 1957/58 being able to photograph an object that small moving that fast that far away. Do you mean photos of Sputnik in orbit, or just photos?
http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/3D/JTrack3D.html
Obviously Sputnik is not currently being tracked but IIRC the navy’s Vanguard is still up after about 40 years.
hammerbach I mean ground based photos of Sputnik in Orbit.
This is what I have this image is supposedly a copy of the first official photograh taken by this camera at the Newbrook Observatory in Newbrook Alberta. Apparently the observatory was originally established to study meteor spectra and to study the upper atmosphere in the years prior to space travel. As for the quality of the images it’s all I’ve got, I have many other pictures and I’m trying to piece it all together
The NY Times has its entire series of articles from that first week up on the net at: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/sputnik/main.html
Fascinating reading.
The articles repeatedly state that Sputnik was easily observable through binoculars and telescopes, so I’m sure that even in 1957 a camera could be attached for a photo. Astronomers had already been doing the bulk of their observations through cameras for years.
And the U.S. already had the first of its high-precision cameras in operation:
If your interested in how America detected the first sputniks (or visual booster rocket), or indeed about the early Vangard project (“Minitrack” detection of Sputnik), I would recommend “Vangard: a history” isbn 08747411222 (circa1971) by the Smithsonian press.
make that “Vanguard: a history”
On the subject of tracking the early launches, from this obituary for William Pickering, the former head of the JPL who died last week:
Obviously, it’s time for me to recalibrate my thinking on this subject!
NASA on Sputnik visibility: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/tmp/1957-001B.html :
- first magnitude is as bright as a bright star, whereas sixth magnitude is the faintest visible to the naked eye.
Because it’s so far away, it doesn’t appear to be moving all that fast. Have you never seen a satalite moving across the night sky with your naked eye?
Can’t say that I have, other than the ISS, which is MUCH larger, and not spherical. And only with reflected sunlight. As I said, I’ll recalibrate my thinking on this one. Thanks to all for the info.
Well, everything is reflected sunlight (discounting artificial light, stars, and other natural light sources).
If you look at the sky on a clear night for long enough, in an area not contaminated by artificial light (the city or even a small town is not a good place), you should see a number of satalites cruising overhead.
“This site” is what site?
Yes, I know… I meant to imply that timing was important, and that a spherical object’s reflection would be much harder to see that a flat object’s reflection.
Walloon, see post #8…
I had wanted to keep the name of the observatory out of the post to see what information I could get or if someone could come up with the name of the Observatory without my prompting for it.