Greetings Occultationalists,
I have just received word from Bruno Sicardy (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris) of the possible occultation of a reasonably bright star by Pluto's satellite, Nix.
Bruno writes...
This an alert for a possible stellar occultation by Pluto's small satellite, that could be visible from NZ and AUS, on 22 June 2010 around 09:55 UT (night 22/23 June), see map attached.
The star is red, and is about 1 mag *brighter* than Pluto in red (R=12.5).
Nix is small (100 km across), and uncertainties are of the order of +/ 1000 km, so the probability is low. But payoff could be high, and the observation does not take much time, at the beginning of evening, so that the dinner is not ruined...
Note that for observers with sufficiently large telescope, even a visual observation could be attempted, as the event will be sharp, with an easy nearby comparison "star", namely Pluto. Of course, video or CCD observations are useful in terms of light curve analysis.
Cheers, Bruno
I have created a feed for this event for users of Occult Watcher that have subscribed to the TNO extras feed. Alternatively the prediction plot can be seen here...
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/daveg/...3_summary.html