Hi All <Quote> SPACE.com contacted a number of astronomical observatories but none reported attempting to observe the satellite last night, nor did they have plans for future observations of the debris. "We didn't observe the satellite destruction last night," said a spokesperson from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, who declined to be named. "Our telescope cannot track something moving that fast. To track an object moving that fast you need a much more nimble telescope." <UnQuote> May be a little OT but I am always amused at the view the public and the press have of astronomical observatories and what astronomers do. As a retired professional astronomer of something like 35 years 95% of astronomers do not have the slightest interest in observing artificial satellites and especially not when engaged in scientific observational programs. Normally telescope observing time is expensive and the observers have a limited amount of time to do the observations planned, especially if bad weather is likely to cause loss of time. The last thing astronomers do is sit on their ends idly looking up at the sky . In most cases nowadays the astronomer sees very little of the sky as he sits inside an enclosed "warm" room and watches a monitor on which his/her astronomical target of interest is shown. Certainly at the observatories where I worked the "outside" telephone lines were ignored during the night to discourage causal members of the public phoning with questions etc and the telpehone exchange in the nearby town had strict instructions to put calls through to the observers hostel and not to the various telescope domes on the hill. Professional astronomers generally do not know much about artificial satellites yet are often quoted by the popular press and some of the garbage that comes out makes me cringe . Of course the intelligence of some members of the press also leaves something to be desired - I once casually mentioned the space shuttle in an interview and the reporter asked what was a space shuttle! Ill get off my soap-box now... Cheers Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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