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(863) Benkoela Last Night
2
All, I had my first good opportunity of the year last night: 10.3 mag, large delta mag, 2.5 seconds, tight error bars, high in the south away from moon, nice reasonable 9:20 PM local time Predicted clear skies Actually mostly clear skies Since my other three "good" opportunities so far this year were similar in 1 and 2, but no where close on 3 (completely clouded over despite the clear prediction), I'll take this as a small win. Planned 3 stations: Home observatory, between 1 and 2 sigma 24 km west, "prob" of 7%: C-14 and Watec 910, unattended Hills Creek State Park--one of my go-to locations, 12 km west, "prob" of 92%: C-5 and Astrid, unattended Mansfield University athletic field--a new location I have permission to use, 2 km west, "prob" of 100%: C-5 and Astrid, live and in-person Result: Clean miss as expected. I used a prepoint as the timing was such that a meridian crossing would have been required unattended. Thin clouds evident, but had no impact on measurement. Clean miss. Target was much lower in field than I expected from my prepoint, but still fine. I'm guessing one or two legs of the tripod might have melted in to the ground more than the other(s). Same comment on clouds. Clouded out. One small patch of broken clouds stuck around over the target for about 10 minutes at event time. Prepoint was right on, but entire field was covered for about 20 seconds centered on the event time. Positive take-aways is that I've really got my timing down for doing multiple stations, I have a new location to use in the future, and the hardware worked almost perfectly. The only hardware issue I had was the Astrid at station 3 crashed one time while doing the prepoint. I've had this happen enough now that I'm going to report it to Mark. Seems to happen when I do a prepoint image, see there are no/not enough stars, cancel, retry several times in a row. Steve C
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OWC and Occult Usage
2
I've been pretty happy with the search function that Hristo added to OWC in September, generally I find I'm guessing about 80% of my events using that tool. I find that I haven't ran Occult to find any in a month or so. Do those of you who use both find you get good events from Occult that OWC search doesn't have? I still get occasional cases where I have a clear night (shocking!) and that of course corresponds to the almost equally rare night when OWC search gives me nothing worth trying. Steve C
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20240906_12092_Erinorourke Results Posted
6
George, Paul, Roxanne, Our results from this one from early September have been posted to the IOTA website. Steve
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NEAF
3
All, Some of our regulars may not be able attend NEAF this year. Roxanne, Cindy, and I plan to be there. Rick, Mary Ann, Kevin--are you planning to attend and staff the booth? Anyone else thinking about attending? Steve C
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This coming Sunday morning, (4337) Arecibo is in our area. I've attached a collage with the track and expected moon orbit. There have been 5 reported occultations of this rock, 4 of them also detecting the moon, and all of the moon information comes from occultations--no light curve analyses as far as I can tell, except for Gaia which lists it as a binary with a 60 km orbital radius. The occultations are in agreement with a 49 km orbital radius for the moon. Assuming the weather cooperates--not a given-- then there should be Westport, and New Milford on it. The New Haven scope I'm hoping to deploy closer in as its chord is the same as the New Milford location. Rick, if you are available, you could probably cover the west side for a moon siting there. Your current location(s) would give zero probability for this event, but that is only because the moon isn't included in that probability calculation. The track goes into the Finger Lakes region and into Canada, north of Toronto. Our moon hampers the observation, for the event is only 11 degrees away but the star is a bright 12.1 magnitude. Happy New Year everyone!
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(247973) 2004 BJ84 tonight at 2:25UCT, 8:25 EST
3
I'll be hitting this fairly uncertain event tonight. It's not so incredibly uncertain that it's a guaranteed miss, and it's bright and long enough to justify putting the word out for a few more well-distributed stations. Event time is in two hours. I'd imagine Fan Mtn. will also be observing and I've marked it on the map. Not much time to travel at this point so the invitation is mostly for static observers. OWC link Best, -Teddy
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Friends, many of us work to play forward our love of astronomy and occultation science through mentoring or providing outreach events to local schools and groups. For those of you who are or know teachers and educators who are interested in science along with the study of astronomy.. NASA offers a free webinar which highlights NASA science, education opportunities, along with sharing new resources to support and encourage rural educators. See attached email. You are welcome to join the noted webinar and to forward / share the information with teachers or educators who may be interested. - Roxanne ** ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Rachael Arens <rachael.arens@...> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 12:18:24 PM EST Subject: NASA Webinar Series for Educators Jan. 9th Registration Good morning, We are back for our fifth season of NASA 3-D Thursdays for rural educators! We are excited to invite you to upcoming episodes that highlight NASA science, education opportunities, and new resources. Join hosts Dr. Rachael Arens, Associate Researcher at NAU PLANETS and Luke Henke, Education Advisor for NASA HEAT, on Thursday, Jan. 9th at 7pm CT/ 8pm ET as they welcome Dr. Sharon Bowers, Betsy McAllister, and Joan Harper-Neely from NASA eClips to find out "what's new" in the NASA eClips library. Several new videos and a Primary (PK-2) Engineering Design Packet will be introduced. This interactive webinar will also feature a focus group session seeking YOUR insights and ideas about the unique needs of rural educators and learners. Your voice will help shape future NASA eClips resources to better support diverse learning environments. Access registration here! Access past 3-D Thursday Episodes We are pleased to share our past episodes with you from our updated NASA SciAct Rural Page. Feel free to watch former episodes and reach out to the guests for further resource information. We hope to see you all on Jan. 9th! Best, Dr. Rachael A. Arens, Ed.D. Research Associate for NAU PLANETS AFA/Rolls Royce 2020 National Teacher of the Year U.S. Presidential Award for Environmental Education Twitter: @ArensRachael
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Here's one I've had on my radar for quite while and have good sky conditions forecast. I just signed up for it. I'm just inside the north edge of the path. A good one for for multiple cords. Low altitude (~22 deg for me). ~6:21 PM EST https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1443-767-78284-649479-U017436
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Two good events Monday evening
2
Hello, We're planning on doing multichord observations on two very nice events on Monday evening local (Tuesday UTC). (8294) Takayuki - 02:22:19 UTC 12.8 mag, 1.2 seconds (888) Parysatis - 04:22:42 UTC 8.4 mag, 6.0 seconds In particular, the latter event is particularly enticing for its brightness and max duration. Any additional stations would be very welcome! Best, -Teddy
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(43369) 2000 WP3 Early Monday Morning
2
This is the next one I may try multiple stations on, my predicted weather now is 50/50. The seemingly usual 2:07 AM local time, mag 11.8, complete drop, duration 0.7 seconds. Only thing I don't like is the low elevation, 24 degrees in the SSE. Rick--looks like your usual observatory is in the 1-sigma zone. /event/1431-43369-101815-646700-U023411 For some unknown reason, ISP won't allow me to send this email with the link above "intact"--you will need to add the https://cloud.occultwatcher.net to use it. Steve
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(602) Marianna
A very frustrating night! I had 5 decent chances from the home observatory last night. When I got out there, an hour before the first, I found that the dome shutter was frozen in place (from the light snow we had the last two days melting and freezing). After fussing with it for an hour in the dark, I had to give up--killing chances for 4 of them due to their faintness--leaving Marianna which was bright enough for the Astrid/C-5 combination. I ended up putting both Astrids on the back deck, setting one to 0.1 and the other to 0.05 second exposures. I did the prepoints around midnight successfully, and it immediately clouded up. Looking at the satellite images, these unexpected clouds were clearly caused by airflow off Lake Erie combining with our higher elevation--as soon as the flow hit the upslope, the clouds formed. Anyway, I let them both run and went to bed. Just looking at the results now. Note that this slow event had an expected maximum duration of 60 seconds--very different from the now typical 0.5 second-ish ones I'm mostly doing. Well, this was one time where the long duration hurt. Mostly in clouds at event time, but quickly in and out. In the Astrid with 0.1 second exposures, I think I found the D--but there is simply no chance of digging out the R due to the cloud timing. If anyone does finds they have a complete event, I'll dig into it more and see if I can produce a D with confidence and if so, submit it. Hindsight says I should have been much more conservative with the exposure times. Maybe 0.1 and 0.5 or even a second. Steve
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(602) Marianna Saturday ~7:10 UTC
6
This is a good one that right now has a 50/50 chance of being clear here (I'll take those odds this time of the year). Low number, so fairly wide path--roughly 75 miles. Path centerline from just south of Akron to just north of Boston. Mag 10.8 and drop of 3.3, duration of about a minute (!), 52 degrees up in the east. Right now Kevin G and I are signed up, as well as Vince in AZ with two stations. I haven't decided how many stations I'll do on this one yet. Steve
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(101302) 1998 SA131 at about 5:17 UTC Tonight
3
I am planning to do 2 or maybe 3 stations for this one tonight--first clear night in 10 here, and who knows when the next will be. Not the best for my Astrids--it will be right at the edge of the limiting magnitude for something this short, but sometimes you have to push the envelope. MagR 12.1 Delta M 6.6 Tmax 0.4 RUWE 1.0 Star Alt/Az: 55@249 Path is just east of Cleveland, just south of me here in Wellsboro, Poughkeepsie, south of Hartford, CT, Providence, RI. Steve
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(30724) Peterburgtrista Early Monday
3
It has been more than a week since I've had clear skies, but there is a fair chance I'll have a clear patch Sunday/Monday. That night, there are two really good events only 20 minutes apart (of course)--both with stars around mag 9. I can't reasonably do both events with this short a period between them. The first is (26188) Zengqingeun at about 8:06 UT, with a path roughly from Ashtabula (OH--and points west) to just north of New Haven (CT). This one has a duration of 0.6 and a large-ish RUWE of 1.8. Looks like Kevin G is signed up for this one, but outside the predicted shadow. My home observatory is well outside the shadow as well--but I could do two Astrid stations for this one if others were interested. Right now my tentative plan is to pass on this one. The second is (30724) Peterburgtrista at about 8:27 UT, with a path roughly from south of Hamilton (ON) thru Allentown (PA) to Trenton (NJ). Not only is it bright, it also has a long-ish duration of 1.8 seconds, reasonable RUWE of 1.1. Right now I'm the only one signed up. It does go over my observatory, but is in my problem direction with the trees (36 elevation, 299 azimuth). I have a number of options for home--so I'll definitely try from there (already posted on OW). I will do at least one more--the second station for now I'm putting at our local airport, and also is already on OW. I may try a third station--I'll tentatively post that for one of our state parks--this is the most likely to be cancelled depending on a host of potential issues. Garrett--any chance you can do a station for this one? I don't think there any other OccultNEUS folks near this path, but it does go north of Calgary, so I'll also ping those folks. Steve
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Request to Join OccultNEUS from Outside the Area
10
All, An IOTA member on the west coast requested to join OccultNEUS--to possibly coordinate cross-country events. My inclination is to not go forward with this, but I wanted to get other inputs and I'll defer to what the majority thinks. Thoughts? Steve
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(146513) 2001 SA98
I see that Kevin Green has already marked this one. Bright star (~9 mag). This falls right over four of our fixed observatories in Virginia (I've roughly marked three of the four on OWC), so we already have five telescopes pointed at it. With such a large uncertainty, it would be nice to have as many telescopes observe as can do so conveniently. Passes right over all of the major urban hubs of the NE and the surrounding countryside. https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1417-146513-36870-649107-T00573-1 Low probability, but with a very bright star and lots of telescopes we might have a chance of getting it. Best, -Teddy
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East Coast DARK SKIES TALK: FREE via Zoom 7PM Nov 18th
Many of us who frequent Cherry Springs are familiar with Steve Conard's and Mark Grosz's work on saving the dark sky conditions here in PA. Both are active members of Dark Skies International, a group working to help deter light pollution here in our home skies and surrounding areas. Thank you guys! Mark will be giving a Zoom talk on the topic at next week's RAC meeting. (RAC is the astronomy club behind NEAF and NEIAC.) Join us as we support the growing need to protect our dark skies and see how the small steps you take to combat light pollution can provide benefit to amateur astronomers, asteroid chasers, and to your local matural habitat as well. - Roxanne Do We Need the Dark? Rockland Astronomy Club Rockland Sierra Club Rockland Audubon Society Present A SPECIAL EVENT Dark Skies: Do We Need the Dark? FREE Zoom Lecture: Monday, November 18, 7pm? Online. See Zoom info below. The Veil Nebula, NGC6960, NASA As much as plants and animals need light, they also need the dark. At a moment when we are facing a crisis in extinctions, scientific studies document that light pollution disrupts wildlife and plants, impacts human health, and contributes to climate change. The loss of dark skies also blocks our most ancient connection with the universe. From the beginning of time, light and dark, day and night, have been the great clock that orchestrates life on earth. In addition to the impacts on migrating birds and all other wildlife, we are also losing part of our birthright that joins us with all the generations, the sense of awe at the stars in the night sky. Mark Grosz, from DarkSky International, will discuss the ecological impacts of the loss of dark skies. The good news is that we can begin to restore darker skies with relatively simple solutions. Click HERE to join Zoom Meeting Or call: 1-929-205-6099 / Meeting ID: 813 3013 6167
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(24446) 2000 PR25 Tonight ~6pm
Hello everyone, It occurs to me that I should share this event with a wider community. We are going to try to put 6 stations (5/6 uploaded to OWC) on target to refine the orbit of a fairly uncertain Trojan, and hopefully hit a multi-chord positive for some profiling. We're going to use some of our fixed observatories outside of the 1-sigma zone in the hopes of detecting a moon or ring system. I'm advertising this in the hopes that anyone in the DC-Maryland area would be able to deploy their telescopes anywhere within the 3-sigma zone. Even stationary observatories far away from the centerline could be useful for binary companion/ring detections! Our chords are marked on OWC. Our northernmost chord is tentative. https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1415-24446-309454-648786-U134157# Best, -Teddy
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Here is an event that is missed by the standard searches, because it is too early in the evening for most of the USA, but it is great for this group. This is a great one for multiple chords. Event magnitude is 13, and the max duration is 3.8 seconds. Shadow runs from NY down to MD with centerline going through New Haven and Columbus. https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/1414-181-276161-646978-U170075/1983227
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Really unfortunate timing on this one (I'm traveling that day), but pointing this one out because 76818 has a satellite. This event is "very" bright (V 10.5, R 9.8), duration of 0.7 seconds, almost at zenith here (beware if you are using an alt-az), good RUWA, drop of >4 mags, rank 100. Satellite is about a third the diameter of the primary, so could get as much as 0.2 seconds from that. Orbit is about 3x the primary radius. Path as shown--Harrisonburg, VA, to roughly halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. Steve C
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Image Name
Sat 8:39am
Sat 8:39am