The Occultation of an 11.1 star by Asteroid Hiraoka

July 8, 2022 at 10:19pm

This medium rank event of a bright star is part of a triple event; a brighter 10.3 star 2 hrs later, and then Titan's occultation of an 8.7 star 2 hours after that, all best seen south of Santa Cruz. There's a week low pressure area spinning clouds that will likely be in play, but the prediction is that our sites will be ~between cloud bands, and we hope the star will shine through the thin clouds. Sites: Kirk will be on a low-travel paved backroad from Tres Pinos, and for me, near the San Benito fairgrounds. Altitude is 25 degrees in ESE in Aquila. Should make sure horizon is decent for this. The event lasts only 1.2 seconds but is bright enough that we can do it at 2x and still get a very good outline of the target asteroid, if we're lucky.

Results:

Nolthenius:

After dropping off Kirk and getting to my own site, and changing position to a different road to where I could access the star and not be blinded by oncoming traffic, and then setting up and aligning the scope, I verified it was Go-To'ing accurately, but there was little time before the event.... For the second time in a week, I got fooled... by an asterism of stars through the clouds which looked very much like the tight triangle of stars around the real target. Variable obscuration made it hard to judge true magnitudes. In fact, I was taping a star about a magnitude or more brighter than the target. I was not able to completely verify the proper field and now it was time to record, which I did. Only afterwards did I continue that verification process and discovered the target was actually about 1/4 chip to the right of where I taped. So - it was an "FFF" (Failed to Find Field)

Kirk Bender

Kirk's site was on Qien Saba Rd out of Tres Pinos. A nice road for future reference. He recorded at 8X to make sure the target was visible even through the variable clouds.