Hi Kurt, I believe that OccultWatcher actually uses predictions that are generated by Occult4. It will periodically sync up with selected servers. I'll email the specifics for this morning's occultation when I get home - I don't have them here at work. Also, keep in mind that I'm in Hyde Park (Cache Valley) so, I'm pretty sure that SLC isn't in the track for this occultation. Clear skies, Dale.
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy- bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Kurt Fisher Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 3:53 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] Utah astro wiki update: 1-5- 2008asteriodoccultation
Dale,
Thanks.
Occult Watch looks like another good option. All this is pretty amazing software.
Occult4 doesn't return the occultation that you mentioned. Could you post some details so I can check out the entry. I'd like to figure out why it did not come up in Occult4?
One the thing I like about Occult4 is that you can search for potential asteroid occultations against the fainter UCAC2 catalogue. This increases the chance of finding an asteroid occultation that you do not have to drive a 200 km to watch. The brighter Tycho2 entries (< mag10 in that mag 11 catalogue) seem to happen infrequently for any one North American location.
It looks like it will be a good year for grazing lunar occultations. Leafing through my 2008 RASC Handbook (at pp167-172) over lunch, preliminary there are three potential observable lunar grazes in 2008 that cross over or near SLC County. (No. 45 - 2/21 - 33km dist from SLC); No. 95 - 4/14 - 2km dist; No. 210 - 12-17 - 3km dist). I took a quick look at these in Occult4 adding the driving distances from SLC in the preceding paranthetical. I'll check these 2008 grazes out in more detail using Occult4 later in the month.
The lunar occultation graze on 2-21-2008 at 4:25 UT across a mag 7.8 star near the lunar north pole occurs during the near full Moon and would not be useable. But as it happens, the 4:25 UT occultation (4:38 UT in Occult4) frutitously occurs during the February 21 (Feb. 20 9:38 MST) total lunar eclipse when the Moon will be in the Earth's umbra. See the 2008 RASC Handbook at p. 138. Maybe the lunar graze of this mag 7.8 star will not be washed out by the full Moon. SPOC will be opening for the special eclipse event. Running the gaze through Occult4 using SPOC's coordinates and altitude shows SPOC is 13km north of the graze centerline.
I believe Patrick will be distributing the 2008 handbooks at the solstice party.
- Kurt
P.S. for lurkers. Another option for bright star and grazing lunar occultations by the Moon that doesn't involve using software is to download the city specific table for 2008 from:
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/bobgraze/f.zip
in
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/iotandx.htm
The lunar graze maps for 2008 (reproduced in the 2008 RASC Handbook) will also be available at that site, but have not been posted yet.
There are three types of occultations described in this thread: 1) occultations by asteroids of stars used to determine the size of the asteroid, 2) total occultations of binary and multiple star by the dark limb of the Moon used to determine the separation of a members of a multiple system, and 3) grazing occultations of the Moon's dark limb by single stars used to create a partial profile of the topography of the Moon's limb. .com