Jarmila Occultation - July 24, 2004

Observer: Richard Nolthenius

Site: Locatelli Ranch in Bonny Doon. Long= -122 11.62', Lat=+37 08.56' Elev 2190 ft. This is about 8 miles south of the Preston July 17 nominal southern limit.

Chris Angelos and I arrived an hour early and set up the 10" Meade LX200 and video gear. However, I had trouble getting power to the camera. Although this was solved, time got short and I hadn't located the star in the videocamera and the LX was pointing not that accurately. I made an executive decision and pulled off the PC164c camera and did the event visually with WWV/digital Tape Recorder. The star was 11.5, bright enough to keep in steady view but not so bright that a 0.2 second event or two couldn't have been missed. So, I can't say much about small satellites, but for the main event - it was a miss. I observed the star steadily without break from 5:04:00 UT till 5:08:00 UT.