Re: Apollo 13
Jim Scotti (jscotti@LPL.Arizona.EDU)
Sun, 15 Feb 1998 12:21:15 -0700 (MST)
On Sun, 15 Feb 1998 KIRK3KHAN@aol.com wrote:
> If I may, I'd just like to add to Philip Chien's comment:
>
> "As far as Apollo was concerned, the results of the Apollo 13 explosion were
> observed by engineers at the Johnson Space Center who viewed the expanding
> oxygen cloud from the breeched tank in a telescope."
>
> On the roof of Building 16A at the Manned Spacecraft Center, engineer Andy
> Saulietes with three of his colleagues, had been pointing a 14 inch telescope
> with a charged coupled device (CCD) hooked up to a black and white TV, at the
> Apollo command,service, and LEM at a distance of approx. 200,000 miles
> (322,000 km).
I hate to nitpick, but the observation you mention occured before any
useful CCDs had been produced (or perhaps even invented). I suspect the
observation was made with a regular vidicon tube perhaps with an image
intensifier in front of it at most. A hunt through Sky and Telescope
might turn up more details of the observation as I think I remember seeing
it there (maybe Aviation Leak would also be a useful place to search for
images of the debris cloud from Apollo 13). I believe that the first CCDs
imagers appeared between about 1973 and 1975.
>
> Dan Poeder
> Wyoming, Michigan
Jim.
Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory jscotti@lpl.arizona.edu
University of Arizona 520/621-2717
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/