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DaveGee
01-11-2006, 01:00 PM
There is a good asteroid occultation for Saturday Morning 4th November, see...
http://occsec.wellington.net.nz/planet/2006/updates/061103_714_5649_u.htm

The time for the Sydney end of the event is 5:06am (summertime) and I have created a google "map" showing the path. it can be found here...
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/daveg/occ_maps/061003_Ulula_Syd.jpg

For those who like to play with google, the .kml file can be found here...
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/daveg/occ_maps/061103_Ulula.KML

Anyway, twilight starts to interfere by event time so to ensure that the event would be observable, this morning (1st Nov) I ran a Moccultation* using my telescopes; visually with my 10"f5 Newtonian and by video with my 8"SCT@f3.3.

Using the 10", I found the target star by 4:45am and found that twilight started brighten the sky from 4:55am, however the star was easily viewable until 5:22am, well past event time.

Using the 8", I found that the video camera could see the star until 5:40am!

So, apart from weather conditions on Saturday morning, this event will be readily viewable across Sydney. I wish to encourage observations from locations within the red (1-sigma) lines as shown on the GE map. I'd like to hear of positive or negative observations, better still please report your observation to RASNZ on the form...
http://occsec.wellington.net.nz/planet/mp_email.txt

cheers
DaveGault

* A Moccultation is a test run of an occultation.

rmcpb
03-11-2006, 09:20 AM
Not looking good weather wise for this one. I was quite excited to have a go at my first occultation, even had the pointy hat out.