From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 05:03:05 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: David Dunham
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 2:24 AM
To: occultation_at_skypub.com
Subject: AstroAlert: Asteroid/Jupiter/Chiron occ'n updates to April 5 Asteroid/Jupiter/Chiron occ'n updates to April 5
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This Is SKY & TELESCOPE's AstroAlert for Occultations
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On April 1-7, Jupiter will occult an 11.6-magnitude star twice,
and its ring will also occult the star; the motion will be very
slow, around Jupiter's stationary point. See more about it below.
Tomorrow night, March 6/7, an occultation of a 10.5-mag. star by the
33-km asteroid (801) Helwerthia will be visible from central Mexico
(near Mexico City and Monterrey), just east of San Antonio and Ft.
Worth, Texas (considering the uncertainties, both cities might be
within the actual path), Oklahoma City at the western limit, over
Lawrence, KS; central Iowa, and western Wisconsin, from 12:51 to
12:57 am CST. Several observers plan to try it, and the weather
forecast for Texas at least is good. The next night, (856)
Backlunda will occult an 11.4-mag. star from n.w. Mexico and Texas
to Norfolk, VA. The updated information for these and other good
asteroidal occultations to April 5, as well as the best 2003 USA
event, is given below.
Updated information about asteroidal occultations visible from
North America, Europe, and some other areas are summarized according
to calculations by Steve Preston and Jan Manek. Updated path maps,
finder charts, and other detailed information about these events can
be found at the Web sites at the end of this message; Steve
Preston's Web site also has path updates for South America,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and often other areas, while Jan
Manek's site covers Europe and southern Africa (but some European
events are instead on Preston's site, especially trans-Atlantic
events); you should consult them since I mainly list the better
foreign and North American events here. Under "Approx. location",
places are spelled out when they can be, but usually it is necessary
to use the standard two-letter postal abbreviations for the States
of the USA and provinces of Canada (for example, AB = Alberta, NB =
New Brunswick, NE = Nebraska) or the two-letter country
abbreviations used in Web and e-mail addresses (FR = France, DE =
Germany, NZ = New Zealand, etc.). "cen." means central, and small
letters, with or without ".", indicate the part of the State,
Province, or country, such as sCA = southern California, nON =
northern Ontario, sTX = southern Texas, etc. I use below KC for
Kansas City. Often, not every place crossed by a path is mentioned,
so if you are between two listed states or countries, the event may
occur in your location; also, due to remaining path errors, if you
are in adjacent areas, you should also watch since the actual path
might occur at your location. Unless otherwise specified in the
notes, the magnitude drop in case of an occultation is 1.0 or more.
Those especially in the Americas are reminded that the dates and
times below are U.T., and that local dates may be a day earlier.
The updated paths are final for events to about Feb. 8, but later
events, the paths may move slightly with further updates. NOTE that
the times are U.T.; especially in the Americas, events often occur
the evening of the PREVIOUSLY-LISTED date, local time.
2003 Asteroid S t a r
Date U.T. Diam., R.A.(2000)Dec.
Mar.h m m # Name km mag. h m o / Approx. location
7 6:50-:57 801 Helwerthia33 10.5 8 06.1 +04 21 MX,TX,eOK,eKS,IA,WI,ON
8 7:19-:29 856 Backlunda 52 11.4 7 32.1 +24 08 nMX,nTX,AR,TN,sVA,nNC
8 21:50-:58 528 Rezia 86 11.4 6 51.9 +36 36 UK,wFrance,eSpain,Alg.
8 22:50-:62 275 Sapientia121 8.5 8 39.2 +19 36 Brazil(Belo Horizonte)
10 0:04-:35 417 Suevia 40 11.1 7 42.0 +12 50 PE,wVE,DE,ePA,cNY,seON
12 12:27-:27 923 Herluga 32 11.6 18 47.1 -10 34 Baja,sTucsonAZ,sNM,nTX
14 2:01-:06 436 Patricia 59 11.5 5 25.2 +41 33 ND,IA,swIL,TN,GA,DR,VE
14 5:16-:16 446 Aeternitas45 10.4 5 16.1 +32 28 Montreal,nVT,cNH,sME
14 10:04-:05 975 Persever. 26 9.6 11 50.1 +04 03 sNS,sNB,nME,QuebecCity
14 12:02-:30 253 Mathilde 58 7.6 7 27.4 +15 19 Sum.,eMY,CM,China,Sib.
16 3:58-:62 663 Gerlinde 100 11.5 7 04.2 +01 06 nMX,seTX,nLA,nMS,cTN,
seKY,seWV,nwVA,wMD,sePA,nNJ,NYC,LI,CT,RI,seMA,swNS
17 2:28-:72 117 Lomia 148 10.3 9 40.7 +09 41 wTR,nGR,c&nwIT,cFR,NF,
NB,nME,sPQ,sON,sMI,seWI,nIL,sIA,nwMO,KS,seCO,nNM,AZ(PHX),seCA,nBaja
17 8:09-:09 8 Flora 135 12.1 17 57.3 -18 58 sOK,nLA,sMS,sAL,nFla.
19 7:58-:58 336 Lacadiera 69 8.8 18 04.2 -22 41 nLA,sMS,sAL,w&cenFla.
20 17:12-:22 882 Swetlana 43 6.5 10 04.1 +03 12 nTW,China,nKZ,nRU,nFI
23 9:41-:62 704Interamnia316 6.7 7 27.2 +11 57 cen. Honshu, Hawaii
23 23:13-:19 192 Nausikaa 103 9.2 16 51.8 -30 22 sRU,neIR,sPK,w&sIndia
24 4:47-:51 801 Helwerthia33 11.3 8 07.9 +06 48 sCA,nAZ,UT,WY,ND,seMB
24 10:32-:33 338 Budrosa 63 5.8 4 57.8 +23 57 Darwin & Cairns, AU
24 14:34-:39 82 Alkmene 61 9.7 6 48.0 +26 20 nKZ,MG,neChina,sJapan
28 16:19-:22 8060 Anius 25 6.6 14 05.2 -16 20 Baikal,Manch.,nHonshu
29 11:07-:08 109 Felicitas 89 10.3 5 10.4 +30 18 Korea, central Honshu
29 11:36-:38 2060 Chiron 200 11.1 19 12.7 -15 45 Brit.Columbia? low
31 6:14-:19 303 Josephina 99 9.7 17 57.9 -31 05 wCU,JM,Aruba,nVE,neBR
31 7:46-:51 179 Klytaemn. 77 10.0 14 13.0 -21 10 SC,eTN,neMO,sIA,SD,AB
April
1 9:24-:27 287 Nephthys 67 10.3 7 39.0 +20 22 Ceduna-Brisbane, AU
1-7 Jupiter 11.6 8 42.7 +19 06Europe,Africa,Americas
3 2:55-:56 109 Felicitas 89 11.7 5 20.9 +30 16 nAZ,cNM,cen.Tex.,Cuba
3 2:58-:58 8 Flora 135 8.6 18 13.8 -18 49 Curitiba,Brazil area
3 3:14-:19 8 Flora 135 9.4 18 13.8 -18 49 Lanzarote?,Alg.,cenEG
4 22:16-:19 31Euphrosyne255 10.6 16 38.3 -38 10 w.China, cen.India
5 4:47-:47 132 Aethra 42 10.5 5 01.2 +12 08 sCalif.,sAriz.,cTexas
Notes for Individual Events:
March 8, Sapientia: The star is SAO 98002.
March 14, asteroid 975 is Perseverantia.
March 14, Mathilde: Half of Mathilde was imaged by NEAR in 1997. The
star is SAO 96914A. The B component, mag. 8.6, is 2.4" away in PA 97
deg.
March 17, Flora: The mag. drop will be only 0.4.
March 19: The star is SAO 186217, spectral type A3.
March 20: The star is SAO 118086.
March 23, Interamnia: This update is very good (1-sigma error less
than 0.2 path-widths), showing that the path goes directly over Hawaii,
with all 8 major islands within the path. With such a large asteroid
and bright star, it is the best asteroidal occultation in the USA this
year; two of us from the mainland are already planning trips for it.
The star is SAO 96908, near the Gemini-Canis Minor border.
March 23, Nausikaa: The star is SAO 208107.
March 24, Budrosa: The star is 99 Tauri = SAO 76858.
March 28: The star is ZC 2018 = SAO 158331.
March 29, Chiron: This is the largest Centaur object, probably a
giant comet. The path is quite uncertain due to the distance to
Chiron and the lack of astrometric observations since last July.
New observations will be made soon that should improve the
prediction, hopefully moving the path south.
March 31, asteroid (179) is Klytaemnestra.
April 3, Flora: A relatively bright close double star is occulted by the
large asteroid (8) Flora. The star is not in the PPM catalog, probably
because the duplicity made astrometry difficult. They are separate
components of TYC 6272-00706, separated by about 8".
April 1-7: Alfons Gabel in Germany found that Jupiter will occult
11.6-mag. TYC 1396-00214 at its stationary point such that there
will be two very slow occultations by the planet; the UT is only
accurate to about +/-1h:
Apr. UT
1 21h disappearance near s. pole
2 21h reappearance near s. pole, farther north
4 21h disappearance about 20 deg. s. of equator
6 20h reappearance just s. of equator
6 23h - Apr. 7, 7h: passage behind Jupiter's ring
Bruno Sicardy notes that this is a very unusual occultation that
should be observed the best way possible. Occultations by the
close Jovian satellites are possible, possibly by some as yet
unknown small ones, 10 km or less across. Much more information
about the event, including paths of the star behind Jupiter for
selected major observatories, can be found at:
http://despa.obspm.fr/~sicardy/jupiter/jupiter.html
______
For more about the asteroidal events, see Steve Preston's
Web site at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/
for updated path maps and other details, and see the asteroidal
occultation page of the main IOTA site at
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/asteroids/astrndx.htm
for annotated versions of E. Goffin's good finder charts
for North American events and links to sites covering
other areas. For Europe, see also Ludek Vasta and Jan Manek's site
at http://sorry.vse.cz/~ludek/mp .
I just list the events in the table above; see the Web sites for
the updated maps to see the closest approach time for your
location, and more accurate coordinates of the star and its
designation. You must display this message with a fixed-space
font such as Courier for the columns of the table to line up.
The U.T. time range is given, with only the minutes of the
hour given for the end time (subtract 60 and add 1 to the hour
for end minutes greater than 59).
Good luck with YOUR observations of asteroidal occultations.
David Dunham, 2003 March 6, 6h UT
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