This bright event is at 60 degrees altitude in Pisces, and the sun is fully down in a dark sky. To get high odds you'd need to drive to just south of Moss Landing. You can get 55% odds of a hit by just driving to Wilder Ranch. Traffic at that time might be tough, and so .... we'll see. The event lasts 7.7 seconds so it's a good long event, and a full drop. Should allow a very good resolution on the asteroid. There are 5 other observers as this path goes down through Arizona. Karl would have to drive down to get it - it's not likely to be visible from his home.
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Fog dogged our team. While the prior night had fog only creeping a bit up the mountain, tonight the fog rose much higher. I promised Kirk I'd keep driving until I got to a high enough spot out of the fog. That turned out to be Nichols Rd, just below the lower entrance to Summit Rd. The sky was perfect, as only a deep fog night can give. No city lights perceptable in any direction. Even SiValley direction was quite dark. Great night to be out under the stars, and I did some photographing of the sky afterwards which I liked. I had noticed this one spot as having a clear view in most directions but worried it might have too many privacy-concerned neighbors. I chanced it anyway, and it turned out fine. I was noticed, but people were friendly. I did fine one little spot at the base of two driveways that was just barely off Nichols itself and was suitable for setup and not on anyone's property. Great spot for eastern and northern events. Not so great for the West, as you head into the forest a hundred yards further along. Got great data. The easy way to not goof on the coordinates as I sometimes do when making charts, was to use NGC 213 as the Go-To. It's the little galaxy just off the square. The distinctive triangle of bright stars showed on initial pointing and so I was on target and all systems go quite early, and had to wait 25 minutes before the event. I took advantage by doing some photography. One neighbor, a kindly older couple, stopped as they exited their driveway which I was at the base of, and asked "Doing some sky watching? Nice night". I explained excitedly what I was doing and showing them my chart, and who I was, and they were totally fine with it all.
I worried I would see a miss, as this spot was above the northern limit and odds were less than 50% of a hit. As it turned out, there was a large north shift, ruining the Az teams as well as Kirk, who did not want to get above the northern limit in his search for a spot. As I drove home, I could see fog just barely below my spot. Fog climbed to 2500 ft, on this 2660 ft mountain. KIrk tried several spots, settling at the Chuch on BD Rd, which quickly got fogged in and too late to drive further. Karl was fixed at 1600 ft at home. Both fogged out.
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Sky plane reductions from IOTA.
