The Visitor's Center is at the end of the yellow ruler line, and is a good graze station according to the predicted profile at right
The profile promises lots of events from 0.2 mi south to 1.0 miles south.
A PowerPoint on Lunar Grazing Occultations
There are other lunar occultations on the nights of our visit. The predictions are here.
The Graze of ZC 718
The first graze is of 6.0 magnitude ZC 718, a K5 red giant in Gemini, at 8:10pm PDT. Prediction sheet is here. The path nicely goes across the southern edge of Soda Lake, and we'll want to set up stations along the road to the Visitor's Center, with a particularly favorable station being right at the gate to Painted Rock (which will be locked) at the Visitor's Center. The star is red and so will be brighter than magnitude 6.0 on the video (which is red-sensitive). We will want to converge after this graze quickly and head off to our second graze site immediately; there's only 90 minutes between the first and second graze.
The Visitor's Center is at the end of the yellow ruler line, and is a good graze station according to the predicted profile at right |
The profile promises lots of events from 0.2 mi south to 1.0 miles south. |
The Graze of ZC 726
This graze star is at 9:40pm PDT, and is of a magnitude 7.0 star 10 degrees from the northern cusp. Prediction sheet is here. It's only half as bright as the first graze. However, the profile is actually better and very promising along the top, which is long and bumpy flat, with the possibility of an insane number of blinks and flashes as the star goes behind numerous hills and canyons on the dark side of the moon. GoogleEarth path is here.
This graze is best gotten from alone Pole Line Road, a well developed dirt road north of Soda Lake and easy to find as it hits the main road right where the large high tension towers cross the road. |
0.7 miles south is a great site, and 1.1 miles south is another track promising lots of action |
