First Ring System Around Asteroid

[Occulta]

ESO Media Release:

Observations at many sites in South America, including ESO’s La Silla Observatory, have made the surprise discovery that the remote asteroid Chariklo is surrounded by two dense and narrow rings.

Full details here:

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1410/

Chris

[Blue Skies]

Yet another reason to be pursuing the observation of occultations! :thumbsup:
Interesting news, despite someone pointing out it had already been "leaked" on a wikipedia page. I wonder what else is out there still waiting to be found?

[MrB]

Absolutely!
It is worth noting that at least one 'Amateur' sized instrument was involved in the observations:

[AstroJunk]

Could have been any of us - the target star at 13th mag was easily in the reach of 10" plus scopes, and many of us have been involved in attempts on Chariklo before. Could you imagine what fun it would have been to be cited in Nature:)

That's the fun of occultation observing - you never know what you may discover!!!!

[tonybarry]

As a heads-up to those members who don't frequent the occultation pages, 50000 Quaoar is due for an occultation with a mag. 14.1 star on the 11th April. The prediction has a large uncertainty so observations anywhere along the eastern part of Australia are very worth while.

Jacqui (Blue Skies) has put together a very comprehensive guide to occultation observing. It's well worth the read.

And yes, as Jonathan has mentioned, you never know what you might discover. If I recall correctly, Jonathan has one of only three occultation recordings of Eris. At 94 AU distance, that is one seriously cool feat.

Links:-
http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/bruno-sicardy/larger_tnos_2014_15/QUAOAR/Quaoar_2014-04-11T14h32m49s.jpg

Regards,
Tony Barry

[Blue Skies]

A couple of media articles on this:

IFLScience (http://www.iflscience.com/space/rings-discovered-around-asteroid-first-time)

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/03/27/asteroid_ring_chariklo_is_the_first _non_planet_found_to_have_a_ring.ht ml)

Interesting to note that they lost data because they were using CCDs and just happen to have 'dead time' during the ring crossings. They were pretty sharp dips, though. I'd be interested to know what frame rate we would need to run a video camera at to catch them.

[AstroJunk]

You're too kind Tony!

Jacquie, up to about 15th mag, we are pretty competitive with regard to quality of observation using video. This event would have been possible to have been captured with <4 frame integration with my 14" and around 8 frames with your 8" from a half decent site. Lots of factors at play as usual.

One of the useful results of the occultation is the improved astrometry of the object. The position determined by an occultation event is often 10x better that through normal Earth based measurements. This means that we should get much better predictions and a good chance to follow up the discovery with plenty of refining observations over the next few years :thumbsup:

[Blue Skies]

x8 sounds good - that's what I'm running on a regular basis for the ~12th mag events I've been monitoring lately, so good to know, thanks, Jonathan.

It certainly is a little exciting to think that we may get the chance to see this ourselves one day and I did realise that it was well within our capability, too. :) Lots to look forward to!