last call for GRO coming up soon

From: Walter Nissen (wnissen@freenet.tlh.fl.us)
Date: Wed Apr 05 2000 - 07:53:54 PDT

  • Next message: Mike McCants: "Re: Unid observation"

    Observers at low latitudes may wish to pay special attention to upcoming
    opportunites to see GRO, a large and impressive satellite, as she is
    soon to be ditched into the Pacific.  She's not so impressive at the low
    altitudes allowed at higher latitudes, above about 35 degrees.
    
    Latest elset courtesy of OIG and US SPACECOM:
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00095.15592251 +.00016082 +00000-0 +59694-3 0 08009
    2 21225 028.4525 123.5281 0004013 281.7661 078.2517 15.26087084382094
    
    I haven't checked for other locations, but she will be nearly optimal
    here within the next two weeks.
    
    Some details about the burns which will deorbit GRO are at
    http://www.seds.org/pub/info/newsletters/spaceviews/text/20000327.txt.
    
    General information about GRO is in
    http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/descriptions/cgro.html.
    
    Press release at
    ftp://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/PAO/Releases/2000/H00-44.htm.
    
    GRO, the second of NASA's Great Observatories, is officially known as
    "The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory", named for Arthur Holly Compton
    (1892-1962), who received the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for "The
    Compton Effect" which directly demonstrated the particle nature of
    light.  I find it highly coincidental that I should be communicating
    this note to you via the Internet, as the first tiny speck of cyberspace
    was sparked off in 1961 November on the first floor of "The Karl T.
    Compton Laboratories".  The Compton Laboratories were named for the
    ninth president of William Barton Rogers' MIT, Arthur's older brother,
    Karl Taylor Compton (1887-1954).
    
    According to http://www.bementfamily.com/report5.htm, the Compton
    brothers were among 4 siblings, all of whom graduated Phi Beta Kappa
    from the College of Wooster.  Speaking of some native sons of Ohio, I
    might note in passing that, despite their impressive resumes, it would
    appear that the Compton brothers are not in the running for memorial on
    the anticipated "Ohio quarter dollar".  Thomas Alva Edison, Orville
    Wright (the "Flyer" was built in Ohio), John Herschel Glenn, Jr., Neil
    Alden Armstrong, and William Howard Taft (the only President to be Chief
    Justice) have prominence.
    
    Cheers.
    
    Walter Nissen                   wnissen@tfn.net
    -81.8637, 41.3735, 256m elevation
    
    ---
    
    Ralf Kurtz, tech investor, age 28, reflects on a lifetime of investing
    in high tech stocks:  Mistakes?  You won't make mistakes, because tech
    stocks only swoon to recover and exceed their old highs.  The market has
    its own rhythms.  If your stock goes down 10 or 15%, it's time to take
    out a second mortgage on your house and buy more.
    
    
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