Observer: Richard Nolthenius (831) 479-6506, rinolthe at cabrillo.edu
Asteroid, Star: (697) Galilea, TYC 2888-00152-1
Telescope: 10" Meade LX200 f/10, Alt-Az, 32mm erfle
Location: Karl von Ahnen's home in Santa Cruz Mtns: Lat=37° 05' 54"N, W Long=121° 53' 27"W (NAD83/WGS84), elev 1600 ft.
Method: Voice/WWV/tape recorder
Sky: clear, decent seeing, star visibility: about .8-1 magnitude above mag limit. Solid.
Timings: Jan 8, 20067UT (5.5sec event)
begin: 04:29:33
D: 4:30:32.82 +- 0.2 RT=.5sec
R: 4:30:38.27 +- 0.12 RT=.35sec
end: 04:31:33
Comments: Didn't get the VTI set up; it was one BUGGER of a star to find. Sitting in the middle of nowhere as far a bright reference stars. 57 Aur was nice to start with, but going the next few degrees to the target, amid millions of other 11th mag stars, wasn't easy. In fact, 2 minutes to go I was about to give up, even though I knew my scope was pointed very close to or on the target. The star patterns just wouldn't click, even after properly printing an inverted image and making sure it was oriented properly for my eye. Then - they did click. And the target star was there - in fact it was significantly brighter than I expected it to be (part of the problem I think), in comparison with its immediate neighbors. So, once again I was not able to get a video recording. But I got very solid voice/tape recorder/WWV timings. The event was easy, and we got 4 solid chords from the Bay Area - here's the sky plane plot of all observations.
