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  Vanguard 1  

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Uploaded: 09/30/07 7:14 PM GMT
Vanguard 1
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The next few days sees the 50th anniversary of the start of the cold war space race. Half a century ago the Russians launched the opening salvo with the successful launch of Sputnik. In response to the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, the U.S. built Explorer 1 in 84 days, launching it on January 31, 1958. Before work was completed, however, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on November 3, 1957. On March 17, 1958, Vanguard 1 was successfully placed in Earth orbit by the United States. It was the first solar-powered satellite and was a mere 152 mm in diameter, weighing just 1.4 kg. Vanguard 1 is the oldest artificial object still in space. Vanguard's predecessors, Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2 and Explorer 1 have long since fallen out of orbit.

Credit: NASA/JPL.

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&philcUK
09/30/07 10:45 PM GMT
Fifty year old archive shot cleaned up in the usual fashion using Photoshop CS3 and NoiseNinja. Sorry for the slight banding in the sky – tried to break it up in 16bit mode with some noise but the sites compression got the better of it ;-)

Thanks for stopping by.
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A smart bomb is only as clever as the idiot that tells it what to do
.boogleoogle
10/01/07 7:23 PM GMT
Very nice image you have there; you can barely notice the banding because you brought up the reflective surface so well! I like how the strong blue is broken up with the reflected terrain. Nice!
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.CustomX
10/03/07 8:34 AM GMT
The colors look really awesome! The orientation makes the piece great as well. Great composition too!
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