Austria Occultation - June 11, 2005

Observer: Richard Nolthenius

Site: Carrizo Plain National Monument, CA. WGS84 coordinates from topozone.com are below.

Longitude: W119deg 50.70'

Latitude: North 35deg 18.33'

Elevation: 2488 ft

Telescope: 10" LX200 tracking in alt/az mode.

Timing Method: visual with WWV and voice tape recorder. 22mm eyepiece at f/10.

began: 4:54:01 UT

end: 4:58:03 UT

Conditions were excellent - clean sky, excellent seeing and steady images. The occultation was a miss. Predicted occultation was at 4:56:06. The occultation was shortly after the end of twilight, and after finding the right area, I got faked out on the right star. When I finally had it positively ID'd, got the videocamera hooked up hurriedly and started... there was no image on screen. No time to diagnose, so I pulled off the video and stuck the diagonal/eyepiece combination and did it visually. The star was easy to follow and the seeing quite steady. No question, it was a miss. No occultation during the observing period. This was inside the southern predicted limit. Other observations indicate a small north shift, apparently just enough to give a miss here.