[amsat-bb] Satellites in collision; Watching satellites gone astray: ZS1BI in the news

[Tom Clark, K3IO]

The first amazing news
(http://www.space.com/news/090211-satellite-collision.html) is that the
Iridium-33 satellite was obliterated by a highly improbable collision
with long-dead Soviet Cosmos-2251 satellite ~800 km over Siberia.

   
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Totally unrelated, except for the news appearing on Space.com:  one of
our old-time AMSATers is also in the news on Space.com. The Feb. 5th
edition carried a very interesting article on a long-time AMSAT
supporter, Greg Roberts, ZS1BI. For those of you who don't know Greg, an
interesting Hearsat "Ask The Expert" autobiographical (& how-to) article
can be found at  http://www.hearsat.org/content/ask-expert-greg-roberts.

For many years Greg was a well-known Variable Star Observer
<http://books.google.com/books?id=NoHxiPAkptYC&pg=PA367&lpg=PA367&dq=%22greg+roberts%22+SAAO&source=bl&ots=W9Z8CWnl2C&sig=1YIcgl5kNbe3LCN9v6hCtj6_ZY4&hl=en&ei=6dWTSf3rC8e_tgfIhKCgCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result>
affiliated with the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in
Capetown and has been a very active amateur astronomer, well known for
his visual tracking of satellites. See here
<http://www.saao.ac.za/%7Ewgssa/as3/roberts.html> and also here
<http://www.saao.ac.za/%7Ewgssa/as4/greg.html> to see Greg's very
interesting notes about visual observing of satellites. A photo of Greg
can be seen here
<http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=090204-greg-roberts-02.jpg&cap=Master+satellite+spotter%2C+Greg+Roberts+of+Cape+Town%2C+South+Africa.>.

Greg's most recent visual satellite observing activities are reported on
Space.com at
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090204-tw-satellite-sleuthing.html.
But first, some background -- recent news reports (like this report
<http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=252590162>) tell of 
the DoD's secret satellite DSP-F23 wandering out of control in
Geostationary orbit . The Feb.5 issue of Space.com  tells of Greg's
optical tracking of DSP-F23  as it flew near the European Astrium-1
constellation.  Click here to see  this spectacular video clip of the
F23 "flyby" produced thru Greg's efforts.
<http://www.space.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=SP090203_gRoberts&mode=>
73 de Tom, K3IO