Is it weird how much I love this? Something about matching up events like this with a photo just pleases me so much.
I understand completely. I first got into orbital mechanics in 1973 when I wrote my own program to predict Skylab passes. My mother could never understood why I'd eagerly get up before dawn just to watch a bright light move across the sky, but seeing it move exactly where and when I had predicted it would was enormously satisfying. Probably has to do with the human quest to tame the chaos of nature, or some such rot.
Now if we could do as well with slightly less deterministic processes, like the weather, we'd really have something.
