This event is reasonable to get, except for the duration - only 0.6 seconds. It'll take good dark conditions and an integration time of no worse than 16x or maybe 8x to get enough points to confirm an occultation. I'd decided to skip it, but sky conditions have improved, and this would be an instructive little moment for my Astro 3-2 evening class. The event happens just as our standard 15min break begins at 7:30pm. I'll drive to just outside the classroom and try it, as I did at a similar event for the Spring '23 Astro 4 class which was a nice moment for students and me.
The altitude is 37 degrees, in Scutum, and Az=281 in the SW. Perhaps Kirk and Karl may give it a try? The OW Desktop says magnitude=14.0, but the detailed OW cloud page says G=12.7, R=13.7, which means the Watec magnitude is 13.2, which is not bad, at that altitude. We have a gibbous moon, but not nearby, so sky darkness will not be perfect. The target star is isolated enough from contaminating stars to not be a problem, but close enough to a bright star to enable good targeting with the 8SE
Odds of a "hit" given as 50% for Kirk on the west side, 55% for me at Cabrillo, and 60% for Karl at home. The high RUWE will probably cut those numbers some, but seems worth the effort.
|
|
|
I got set up outside room 806. I had my Astro 3 students come join me as I did final prep and got the 2-star align and ID'd the target field. It was "College and Career Night" (CC night) tonight, which is a once-a-year night when DC's set up demo areas for prospective students to see what their department has to offer. So, the timing worked out well in that regard too. I'd earlier promised to have a scope set up for CC night, and so I did.
But as I ID'd the target area the stars were significantly dimmer than I'd hoped, due to thin cirrus and it seemed too some bogus magnitudes for some stars. The sky was brighter than I hoped and I could not go over 16x w/o white-out, and 8x showed no hint of the target star, nor even 16x. So, I got no data.
Below, is some images taken with the PowerShot, My astro 3 students are there to add to the fun.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Target confusion
I originally mis-labelled the location of the target star, un-helped by the difference between the magnitudes evident on the monitor and the star sizes on the charts, and perhaps being too quick as well, late at night after returning home. Kirk spotted the error, but he too mislabelled where the target was. In truth, the target star and the "bright" star above it on the charts were both too dim for my screen shot, and the target was also invisible on Kirk's screen capture of his LCD image. I've clarified below...
My revised annotation of the LCD monitor shot I took with the Powershot by-hand. The target was lost in the noise. |
Kirk's own screen capture, and my annotation in yellow (Kirk's labelling of the target, in red, is incorrect) |
Kirk recorded at 8x from home, will review tape later, had better view of ths star apparently, since initial guess is 'miss'. No word from Karl as I write this, 2 hrs after the event.
