This is a low rank event, odds of a hit are only 15%, even near the centerline. However, it's clear tonight and I will give it a try. The drop is full, and lasts 1.1 seconds. Probably need at least 16x to get decent signal, maybe 32x. I will try from foot of my driveway.
Az =138, Alt=18 degrees, in Ophiuchus. Nicely close to two much brighter stars that will aid getting on-target
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I got set up at the foot of the driveway, after carefully looking at Google Earth and the azimuth line, and nearby homes and trees. However, the star cleared a more distant higher tree later than I hoped, and I was delayed in getting the target ID'd. I carefully aligned on Deneb and Antares and expected the telescope to go straight to the target area, and I'd see the two bright(?) stars next to the target, but it took a few minutes of hunting around to ID an asterism that then allowed me to get on target. I got taping started a few seconds after the predicted central occultation time. Given the wide time slot that the occultation could have occured, I did confine any event to be earlier rather than later in that period, but not by much. A tough event, the star was very hard to see at 16x, but easier at 32x in a gray'ish background.
I got the recording started 11 seconds after the nominal start, but still possibly within the occultation period, given the poor rank. However, the low altitude and faintness meant that a short event would certainly not be detectable. The event was just too tough, even w/o the late rise above the tree issue. It's not a clear enough miss to report a "miss" to IOTA for the observing period
PyMovie screen capture. |
Composite light curves, for the interval closest to the predicted occultation and before I desperately clicked to '32x' integration setting. These curves were at 16x. |
The target light curve. Hitting 0 level on far too many integrations to make a reliable detection of a short event. Even a 1 second event could not be reliably detected at 16x. 12 degree altitude just has too much atmospheric extinction to get good enough data on a 13.4 star with this equipment. |
No PyOTE run made, no report to IOTA.
