Palomar Prepares High Power Camera To Track Satellite

Hopes of ultimately calculating a definite orbit for the Russian artificial satellite rose yesterday when it was announced that a specially designed, highpower satellite tracking camera will go into operation at Pasadena, Calif., tomorrow.

Fred L. Whipple, director of the Smith-sonian Astrophysical Observatory, revealed that the camera, which is in the final stages of assembly, will be capable of giving the most accurate fixes yet made on the satellite.

Whipple said the device is "the only known camera in the world capable of photographing the satellite at present."

The sighting reports already received at the Observatory have not given locations definite enough to produce an exact answer from the IBM computer machine at M.I.T.

The tracking camera uses an ultra fast f 1 lens with a 22-inch aperture. The image is photographed on a strip of 55 mm. CinemaScope film about one foot long. The camera can fix the satellite within one or two seconds of arc in space and within one thousandth of a second in time.

Despite reports that particles from the tail of the Giacobini-Zinner comet might damage the Russian artificial moon or deflect its orbit downward, University astronomers seem to feel that there is no danger of such an event. They said last night that the warning by British astronomer A. C. Lovell that the satellite might be destroyed because it lacked atmospheric protection had been misinterpreted.