DISNEY: So, we were absolutely hysterical with excitement and it took us some time to start thinking coherently. I think John Cocke was the one who cooled off first.
COCKE: Let's move off that position and move somewhere else, and see if we get the same thing. All right? I hope to God this isn't some sort of artifact in the instrumentation.
DISNEY: We moved the telescope a little bit off the star so that we wouldn't be looking at the star at all.
MC CALLISTER: This is beginning observation number 20.
DISNEY: This time a little pulse began to appear in the middle of the screen and I think our hearts all fell then because we were getting pulsations now from the place where it shouldn't be coming from. And we thought it really was some electronic artifact. And I don't think anything was said. Anyway, we stopped that run.
COCKE: We changed the frequency so that the computer was not running synchronously with the pulsar.
MC CALLISTER: This is the beginning of observation number 21. The change of frequency setting to check the results of the three previous observations.
COCKE: And so we did that, and then we found that there was no pulse there, as we would expect.
DISNEY: And I suggested, I think, that maybe we hadn't set the telescope off quite far enough and that some of the light was leaking around the corner. So we moved the telescope well off this time.
COCKE: Off Baade's Star—off somewhere in some other part of the Nebula.
MC CALLISTER: The observation beginning now is observation number 22. It's .75 millimeters north of SP star.
COCKE: And we did that and we discovered nothing—no pulse at all.
DISNEY: So that was good. And now the real crunch came as we moved the telescope back on the pulsar, we set the timing right and—
MC CALLISTER: This is observation number 23. It's a repeat of observation number 18 of this night.
DISNEY: (inaudible) small prayer—
(crosstalk)
Here she comes.
COCKE: There?
DISNEY: I think so. Look, see. Look at the hole at the bottom.
COCKE: Ah, yes. Right. There it is. I'll be damned.
DISNEY: Wait a mo'—it's building up around here now. There's definitely something here.
COCKE: Yeah, there is, ah huh. Yeah, that's the one.
 |
| Extract from Laboratory notes of John Cocke, night of 15 January, 1969. |
DISNEY: See, look it, look it. See the—
COCKE: Uh huh.
DISNEY: Right, could we have the gain down?
Yeah, it's building up nicely. Look at that.
COCKE: That's about the right spot for it, too, now that we've fiddled around all this time.
DISNEY: Is it? I don't know—
(crosstalk)
COCKE: It's there all right, isn't it? Look at it.
God.
DISNEY: Look, John, there's definitely two pulses. See, look, they're split by a half-cycle.
COCKE: Uh huh. Yeah. Right.
(crosstalk)
DISNEY: Well, that's just about—there couldn't be anything more definite than that could ya?
MC CALLISTER: Come on, tape, hold out.
COCKE: Are we running out of tape there?
MC CALLISTER: Yeah.
DISNEY: Any room for the American National Anthem on that?
(laughter)