My first chord??

[AstralTraveller (David)]

I think I've just measured my first asteroidal occultation: 57 Mnemosyne occultating TYC 0034 00960-1. The video looks good to me, though I'll have to wait for confirmation from an expert. I know I should wait for confirmation before making an announcement but ... bugger that I'm excited! I've been working towards this for a little while and had a few cloud outs, so it's great to get a result.

It took a 'mere' 2hrs to get set up for a ca. 5 sec event but I'm sure I'll get better with practice. [Of course an observatory is the longer term solution.] So, tomorrow night I learn to process the video.

[Octane (Humayun)]

How very cool. Look forward to seeing your video! Can you post a pic?

H

[xelasnave]

Hi David that really is something...I can understand why you are excited and you should be very proud of yourself.
Congratulations.
Alex

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated. Alex, I thing 'relieved' is more the feeling now - it's been 6 months of issues with me or the weather since I got the gear.

The cold light of day has revealed that the video is actually a bit underwhelming. I didn't nail the focus and the gain is too low. Consequently the analysis software keeps losing the star. I've played with settings and now it doesn't loose it until during the event. I'm sure I will eventually get data from the video but it's going to be a wrestle. Meanwhile, I've attached a still from a test video when I got it right. That's the Jewel Box and I've found mag 11.2 stars in that frame. Equipment is: 6" f/8 acromat with 0.5 reducer on a GC-5 and a Watec 902H Ultimate video camera.

This how it's supposed to look.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Nice one David. It's all a bit of a learning curve, but you will be a seasoned expert soon enough. And there are very few people who can accurately identify an 11th mag star in the field. Feel very satisfied to be in a very exclusive bunch

[xelasnave]

David it could be a blessing.
You will have to make additional effort extracting data... A challenge is a wonderful thing. A personal test that maybe only you know the pleasure of success.
Lately whilst building my motorised walking frame I have come to welcome set backs because of the pleasure I experience as I overcome each hurdle. The end result will almost be anti climatic.
We tend to think many aspects of astronomy should be easy and of course these days say focusing is easy. I would take up to 100 shots to get it perfect as possible often getting it great and stuffing it trying to get it better. Then getting it great and not overstepping the limitations of the gear.
Patience practice persistence.
Good luck.
Alex

[StuTodd]

Hi David.

Did you overlay the video with a GPS time stamp?
Asteroid occultation timing is a good thing to be doing, are you using OccultWatcher at all for the predictions?

Stu

[PeterM]

Well done on this achievement David, you have every right to feel proud. I can well imagine the hours that have gone into this. "bugger that I'm excited!" now that's one of the best postings on IIS for some time!
Peter

[tonybarry (Tony)]

Hi David,

I was one of six who posted an interest in the 57 Mnemosyne occultation to OccultWatcher (a Windows app / web service which co-ordinates occultation events and observers). People from Canberra to the Blue Mountains.

You are the only person who saw the occultation - the rest of us had cloud, wind, rain, and or lightning.

So well done !

Hopefully you can make a report to the Occultation Section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. If there are enough chords , you will get a mention in the Minor Planet Centre's updates of asteroidal positions.

Regards,
Tony Barry
WSAAG

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by StuTodd

Hi David.

Did you overlay the video with a GPS time stamp?
Asteroid occultation timing is a good thing to be doing, are you using OccultWatcher at all for the predictions?

Stu

Yes and yes. However Tangra isn't recognising the time stamp for some reason. [Another challenge Alex ]

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

Nice one David. It's all a bit of a learning curve, but you will be a seasoned expert soon enough. And there are very few people who can accurately identify an 11th mag star in the field. Feel very satisfied to be in a very exclusive bunch

I was actually only about 80% sure I had the right star. I used accurate GoTo to find it but I had trouble relating the finder chart to my fov. I'll have to learn to make my own charts flipped correctly for my scope and with a circle showing the fov of my wide-field ep.

Originally Posted by tonybarry

Hi David,

I was one of six who posted an interest in the 57 Mnemosyne occultation to OccultWatcher (a Windows app / web service which co-ordinates occultation events and observers). People from Canberra to the Blue Mountains.

You are the only person who saw the occultation - the rest of us had cloud, wind, rain, and or lightning.

So well done !

Hopefully you can make a report to the Occultation Section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. If there are enough chords , you will get a mention in the Minor Planet Centre's updates of asteroidal positions.

Regards,
Tony Barry
WSAAG

I'm going to set myself up on OccultWatcher soon and I will definitely report the results - even if I have to manually click through frame by frame to get the times!

It's a pity that others missed out. I'm very aware that multiple chords are far far more valuable than a single chord - that's why we need more observers. I had scudding cloud before the event and it was 100% cloud about 30 minutes later.

Originally Posted by PeterM

Well done on this achievement David, you have every right to feel proud. I can well imagine the hours that have gone into this. "bugger that I'm excited!" now that's one of the best postings on IIS for some time!
Peter

Probably fewer hours than you think. Mostly it's been watching the Cloud Free Night web site. The real work is going to come when I start building the observatory.

I'm pleased my comment amused you but I imagine that a SN hunter knows more about excitement than I do. It's a great research area but I couldn't stand doing all the blink comparisons.

[PeterM]

Not amusement Dave, just the fact that someone is saying they are excited about what they have done in Astronomy is great and I applaud it. Blinking is the problem but the end result is the excitement.... well hopefully.

[DaveGee (Dave Gault)]

Well done David.

It's a huge effort and takes great skill to get everything setup and working correctly before event time. To be rewarded with a positive event is icing on the cake.

It's a real pity that the patron-saint of occultation observers - Bozo the Clown managed to dish up cloud, wind and rain to the other 8 observers, many of whom were on target only to be clouded out minutes before thus preventing a team effort.

Please upload your video to Youtube or similar. You can always refer to it in the future, as I'm about to give the url to my first video observation...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTppV1JfXAE
of 16 Psyche. (hint - you need sound turned on...)

After all - out of 7 billion of us, probably less than, maybe 5000 have seen an event such as the one you observed.