The Occultation of a 13.5 star by Asteroid Belopolskya

July 7, 2022 at 12:16:13am

Preston Predictions

This event is high rank, but centered on Moss Landing. We're just outside the northern limit. Home here has 33% odds of a hit. If you decided to drive up to Sunlit Lane to escape the fog, per-chance, your odds of getting this one would be only 10% It's 33 degrees up, in Ophiuchus, at Azimuth 170. Like the Putilin event 40 minutes earlier, it should be do-able from Rincon St. I and Kirk are the only sign-ups for this event

Results:

This was the second event in a 3-fer occultation night. For the first event - Putilin - Kirk set up at the field 1/3 mile north of the bike path crossing upper Meadow UCSC, and I set up at a turnout on the winding uphill section of Empire Grade, about 3 miles further up. We both had misses. For this second event, the path was really from just south of Santa Cruz and further south. We had about a 30% chance of a 'hit' from above the fog. I drove back down, intending to set up at the bike path crossing, but fog was already coming up from the west side at my elevation, so I retreated back up to Kirk's site and, given lack of time, just set up there very quickly trying to get it. But I didn't have time to verify the field and ended up taping the wrong field. Kirk did get it - a miss