  The emission of gravitational waves from a system of massive objects
interacting on elliptical, hyperbolic and parabolic orbits is studied in the
quadrupole approximation. Analytical expressions are then derived for the
gravitational wave luminosity, the total energy output and gravitational
radiation amplitude. A crude estimate of the expected number of events towards
peculiar targets (i.e. globular clusters) is also given. In particular, the
rate of events per year is obtained for the dense stellar cluster at the
Galactic Center.
