Antares, Moon Occulation successful!

[WadeH]

Looked outside at 11.00pm and guess what, full sky cloud cover. Oh well its not to thick (could easily see the moon but no stars) I,ll give the scope a go before bed, expecting not much. Pleasant surprise, there was Antares nice as you like still approaching the moon. Could not see it naked eye at all!

Clicked off a few pics in between visual views, amazing how fast things move when seen in this context. Then all of a sudden it was gone.

While waiting the 1hr 20min for reappearance, I had a look at Saturn in the west and rising Jupiter with his moons. Fantastic!! Seeing was maybe 6/10 and the sky had totally cleared at this stage. I had spent a little time practicing my collomation skills this afternoon and it looks like it paid off.

Ok, time for reamergance of Antares and wouldnt you know it, right on schedule back come the clouds, but thankfully as before the scope could see through them.

A bit tricky this time trying to guess where and when even though I had all the details (Starry Night Pro 6 was spot on with everything).

Suddenly, there it was. Just appeared out of the blackness of the shadowed part of the moon.

As my first occulation it was quite an event and I'm happy that I made the effort. Another good time. I will try to post some pics later today.

:D :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Well done, Wade. Quite a buzz. Thanks for the report.

Clouds and rain here :(

[erick]

Now you see it, now you don't!

No cloud, but lots of smoke haze in Melbourne, but I saw them approaching each other - but sleep was a higher priority last night. Great that you observed the occultation, Wade!

[Terry B]

9 ml of rain overnight. I didn't even try.:shrug:
It was suppose to be a grazing occultation from here but :shrug:

[Dennis]

I didn’t get to see it. Just a near miss from Brissie and then there was a blinkin’ camera attached to the focuser so I didn’t even get a look in! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[DaveGee]

Good onya Wade :thumbsup:

Did you notice that the Antares secondary reappear first? It should have been very apparent.

While you were watching;
-a friend observed the event in New Zealand, noting that the secondary popped "more than 6 seconds before the primary swamped it"
-a group of 9 were observing the northern polar graze, just west of Narrabri.

Here is Dave Herald's report... quote
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +
I've just got home from the Antares graze on Apr 23. We had a fun time - and this is a quick summary which I thought I would share....

Nine people travelled an average of about 600km from various directions to get to the graze site, meeting up with some locals. The location was some 30km to the west of Narrabri (where Rob McNaught of _that_ comet lives). The site was just a few km south of the compact array of the Australia Telescope, an interferometric radio telescope (which we visited the following day, getting to sit at the control desk, and climbing through the base of one of the dishes - a special tour organised for us by Rob).

The weather was 'interesting'. For several days there was a weather system on the East coast blowing cloud inland - with flooding on the coast. To the west of Narrabri the cloud petered out - so we were near the inland limit of the cloud system. The graze was at 3.30am. When we met for dinner the evening before, the sky was perfectly clear. After dinner, it was fully overcast. Most of us went out to the site location (where many were camping), and got a few hours sleep. Rob McNaught went home, planning to come out at 1am. When he got up, it was raining steadily; he figured (quite reasonably) that the night was a total wash-out - and went back to bed. Meanwhile out at the site we just had cloud - no rain. We duly set up for the event, with mixed levels of optimism. But having travelled so far, we set up 'just in case'. 1 hr before the graze, the sky became perfectly clear. 30 mins before the graze, it was completely overcast with thick cloud, and the moon was invisible.

15 mins before the graze, the moon was 'visible' through thick cirrus cloud. Importantly, Antares was also clearly visible - and was very stable - no significant short-term light variations as the cloud moved across. It stayed visible throughout the graze period. But to add to the experience, about 10 mins before the graze it started raining. It rained throughout the graze... But Antares was clearly visible through the cloud and rain, and results were obtained from 5 of the 9 stations. However the cloud prevented any detection of Antares B.

I should add that at the time of the graze Antares was at an altitude of 73 deg - so there was no stopping the rain with a dew shield or umbrella!

In conclusion, we had an enjoyable event observing in the rain.... When we caught up with Rob the next day, he understandably did not believe us when we said we had been successful - and then was kicking himself for not coming out merely because it was raining somewhat heavily at his home!

Dave Herald
Canberra, Australia
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +
end quote I hope it's OK to quote... :shrug:

Here are some Limovie plots of the events from the three successful video
observers, at:
http://daveherald9.googlepages.com/antaresgraze2008april23

[DaveGee]

Here are some pictures of the trip

[AstroJunk]

Rub it in Dave, some of us had to work:thumbsup:

[Outbackmanyep]

That was so much fun, i hope to do it with you all again sometime!!! Good to see so many friendly people and the trip was great!

I got to see 4 events in my first time out and everything went smoothly! I never thought it possible to observe in the rain, in the end my BBQ cover served its purpose covering most of my rig during the event and with only 2 inches of an 8" aperture showing through the covers its a wonder i did so well!!!!!!
I loved swagging it at Yarrie Lake!
Thanks for lending the beeper box Dave G! I shall use it for many more!

Didn't that PANTHERS jersey get around!!!! hehe

Cheers!

[DaveGee]

I was thinking it had to be surgically removed! :rofl:

[Outbackmanyep]

Damn straight! hehe :P