Quote:
Originally Posted by tonybarry
1 metre telescope ... makes the LX90-8" look a bit meagre!
Is there a way to find out how others went with the occultation? Some central repository of information? Or do we wait for the paper?
|
Yes, it would be nice to have a 1m telescope for these events. But the 8" would have seen it, albeit at a slower frame rate.
That's a good question Tony,
This is a pro-am effort, as distinct from a pure professional observation, where sometimes results are kept secret untill the paper is published. You can't blame the pros. really because some times their funding hangs on the results of papers, but our PI, Bruno Sicardy is very open and happy to share, at least the preliminary results, after all, he is getting our observations for free.
Everyone is encouraged to report their results (positive, negative, clouded or technical failure) to John Talbot of RASNZ and to Bruno Sicardy or Paris Observatory.
John would like to receive the report in the correct spreadsheet format, so that your coordinates and times get imported straight into Occult with the minimum of fuss. The form can be downloaded here...
http://occsec.wellington.net.nz/
about 3/4 the way down the page. Early during the month, John produces the detailed results of the previous month. So the detailed results of this Pluto event will be available on the RASNZ site early in July.
If you observed a positive or negative (miss) you can send an email direct to Bruno. Contact me off-line for Bruno's email address.
I'm sure John and Bruno will compare results from time-to-time, to make sure no one's observation is missed.
If there is a paper to be written, and that's up to Bruno, he will include you in the co-author list if you contributed to the observation.
In any case, I'll keep this forum in the loop in the interest of attracting more observers to become involved.
The more keen observers there are, the more observations are made, the more knowledge is gained.
Of course, everyone is encouraged to observe the many asteroid occultation events that criss-cross the ground. You can read about last month's results on the RASNZ site or by installing Dave Herald's Occult and downloading the asteroid update.