Occultations Victoria

[Ron Garrett]

NO - THIS IS NOT BEING PAROCHIAL.

These events are very locally visible and, as Jonathan pointed out, there is a Victoria-sized hole in the records. The occultation on May 8 attracted reasonable interest from Victoria and by focussing on similar ones we may rectify the gap in the records.

Ron

[Ron Garrett]

If you find you ca't stay asleep on June the 10th, then get up. At dawn the new moon occults the Pleides. Obviously you need a good eastern horizon, but it should be an attractive sight as the Pleides and moon rise into the dawn together. With some interesting skyline - a fine photo.

Ron

[Ron Garrett]

The guys in the SE have the occultation of the mag 8.3 star HIP 88776 by asteroid (84) Klio on 01 Jun 2010 , 17:08 UT. Unfortunately thats just after 3 am on the morning of Friday June 2nd. Most of the other occultations in my region of NE Melbourne are mag 10 or more. However, if YOU download OccultWatcher (http://www.hristopavlov.net/OccultWatcher/OccultWatcher.html ) yourself you can enter YOUR site and maybe locate a brighter star 'close' to YOU.
As is often the case, this event is close to several interesting objects, including M55, M22 and M62. This means that you can often fit an occultation (a few minutes set up and a few seconds event) into an observing or photo session. If you can, give it a try. Again this one can only be seen from Victoria (and a little bit of SE NSW).

Good Luck if you try and don't forget to submit a report to IOTA. They need it!

Regards
Ron

[Ron Garrett]

G'day,
While we are waiting for the next Anneliese we could be hunting for new double stars. The moon is an early crescent and that means that the moon moves across the sky the dark limb first, and occults many stars of different magnitudes. So many positive events. A superb opportunity to test your video skills and do something useful and interesting while the moon progressively destroys your observing. A video of the moon occulting a star, processed with LiMovie, will detect a new double star just as well as a MP. And many widely seen, even at home!

Grazes are another matter!

Ron

[Dave47tuc]

Ron,
Is there an active occultation group you are involved in?
You can pm me with your answer.
I use to be in the RASNZ occultation section many years ago.
With members from the ASV and the MPAS (ASF) I was wondering if any of these groups or people still active?

[Ron Garrett]

Yes and no, David.

I've jumped in to try and get something started again in Victoria. The Anneliese event earlier in May was supposed to start a flood of interest but it was clouded out. To get NEW people interested the event needs to be local to the observer (ASV members are throughout the country so someone should surface) a reasonably bright star (the best these nights is between 9 and 10) and at a reasonable time (before 1 am or on a w/e) and these are few and far between. But if you are already hooked then things may be different. We could have several people available in the Melbourne area and some in Gippsland. Are you a member of ASV or MPSA? Phone me 03- 9844 2347 if you like. Something needs to happen.

Ron

[pdthomas23]

Some possible candidates coming up are:

(24808) 1994 TN1 occulting HIP 101661 (mag 9.3) in Microscopium at 2:00 am on Wed June 16

and

(971) Alsatia occulting 2UCAC18542757 (mag 11.5) in Sagittarius at 1:01 am on Tue July 20.

(24808) 1994 TN1 is only 13 km across so the path is very narrow and the occultation only lasts for about 1 second. Predicted path passes through the Bendigo and Heathcote area but the 1-sigma band stretches all the way to Melbourne on the east and to Horsham on the west. Really need a line of observers strung out along the Calder Highway or the Western Highway.

The (971) Alsatia occultation passes right over Melbourne but you'll likely need a 10" or larger scope to see the mag 11.5 star. Expected duration is about 5 seconds.

[DaveGee]

A good asteroidal for Monday night (actually Tuesday morning), see...
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=65145

DaveG

[DaveGee]

Chaps, here is a good event for Melbourne based observers...
John Talbot writes...

Hi Team,
This is a heads up for a bright star event on 2011 Mar 04 Fri 13:55 UTC (31227) 1998 BC41 (est diameter ~18 km) occults HIP 54029 mag 5.5 (brightest event for ages).

I am located just on the Southern edge of predicted path so I will be trying from home.

For NZ the centre line goes close to East - West through Te Horo on SH1 or between Mt Bruce and Masterton on SH2 but wide error band so 1 sigma lines are about 100km N or S of Te Horo. Ie anywhere from Blenheim to Wanganui has about a 6% to 9% probability of a positive.

It then crosses the Tasman and goes roughly between Melboune and Waranambool both inside 1 sigma line. Then it crosses the Bight and should be close to Bunbury with Perth and Albany both just outside the 1 sigma line.

Star is bright enough to make visual observation if you don't have video camera with even a small scope.

In NZ it will be high 56 deg in NW so should not have too many horizon problems here or in Aus.

There are already 5 registered in Occult Watcher but it would be great to see a few more.:welcome:

For more details check Occult Watcher or http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/2011_03/0304_31227_24718.htm

Regards

John Talbot

[Dave47tuc]

Thanks Dave :thumbsup: I will try to monitor this event.
I have posted on the Yahoo group of what I may be able to do.
Cheers,
Dave.