This event is bright and very close to Spica - easy to get good data. The nominal path is high rank, passing just south of Carmel. BUT the RUWE is given as "High", and that means there are known errors in the star position and therefore the actual path is not as well specified as it would look from the OW map. It could be quite different, enough to be even visible from Santa Cruz. So, I'll set up and hope for the best. Given how bright is the star, it could be a very nice event and worth video recording, and also helping the star positioning.
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It was too far west to try from home, so I planned to drive to Neary Lagoon, but fog came in, and so I kept driving, up Empire Grade, and the fog cleared above Cave Gulch and was fine at Marshall Meadow. I got lucky - the path indeed was rather different than the prediction, with a substantial north shift. I got a 4.7 sec occultation at 2x setting. Great to get such a bright star for a change.
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