From 1960—“Science in Space”

At 13:21, there is a segment on Operation Moonwatch. Yes, at the dawn of the space age, thousands of volunteers working in teams used small telescopes to track the first satellites, providing information about their orbits and the effects of the Earth’s shape and atmospheric drag on their trajectories. Edmund Scientific sold a kit assembled from World War II surplus parts that could be assembled into a “Moonwatch Telescope” which had a mirror to reflect the sky into the objective lens, allowing comfortable viewing with the telescope on a desktop.

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