This event goes along the spine of the Santa Cruz mountains. Karl's going to try it. I might try from the centerline with 71% odds, at the top of Mt Charlie Rd. But I might bail, since it pretty much is on top of Karl's line. The odds of a "hit" from home is only 2%, similar for Kirk at home.
The altitude is 34 degrees at Az=196, at event time. So, that's pretty much due south, southwest
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Skies were clear, and despite my reluctance, in the end, I did drive up to the ~centerline to try this one. I got a good 16x recording, and while the star was dim and required a long 16x integration, it would have been solidly visible if anywhere near the maximum duration of 2.2 seconds. But the light curves argue with high probability that it was a miss, despite the 71% odds I'd get a "hit". However, if the event was short and unusually early and lasted only .2 seconds or so, it could have been a "hit". I recorded it as a miss and sent in the report on 1/18/23.
A selfie, from my observing spot at the top of Mtn Charlie Road (which was closed below where I set up, due to the storms.) |
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The dropped readings a few seconds early would be more interesting if there wasn't a normal brightness frame integration between them. A single point occultation is beyond the detection limit for this dataset. |
The target is in green. Sky is in red, and the two bright tracking stars are at top. |
Karl also tried it, from home. At 16x. However, the camcorder battery died just as the predicted occultation was to happen. He was about 1 km south of me, and I was a little south of the centerline, so it's highly likely he had a miss. He also hand-held recorded the screen of the camcorder using his iPhone, but the star was not visible. However, his battery died 2 seconds before the predicted event time, and at that time the star was un-occulted from just 1 km away, so it would take a very extreme asteroid shape to have a D during his recorded time but a miss for me. Clearly if the limit line had included Karl but not me, his "D" would have to be after the time his recording ended, and be extremely short and unlikely to pass the false positive test.
