This is a bright event crossing the spine of the Santa Cruz Mtns, with Karl's home in good position. There's some worry of fog coming in, but the height of the fog at event time might not be higher than Karl's place (or, maybe it will?). For safety, I'm planning on setting up Kirk and I along the "hog back" towards Loma Prieta, as 3,000 ft is supposed to be comfortably above the fog level. Should make for some dramatic images looking down on the fog too.
Alt=40, Az=178 due south. 4 degrees upper right of Eta Ophiuchi. About 15 deg upper left of Antares.
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Karl, Kirk and I all got data. Kirk and Karl feel they have misses. My data, furthest north, I had a suspected very short event visually, but I have not looked at my tape yet. I observed from the parking lot of Radovich Ranch. Karl reports a play-back of his tape on his big screen TV also shows a miss.
I set up at the north end of the parking area, about 30 ft from the road, about level with the first tree. I recorded at 2x in a very dark sky, and this shows in the histogram of the sky, which was heavily clipped. Still, the level of the sky was only ~18, far below the ~400 level of the un-occulted target, and below the ~200 level of the single point dip at the predicted occultation time. A level of 200 was fairly common for the unocculted star, so it does not look suspiciously like a short blink. I did not do a PyOTE analysis as the 2x setting and clean skies and light curves showed it would not change the verdict.
I set Kirk up at a wide spot in Highland Way, about 1/5 mile east of the mailboxes, between Karl's road and Spanish Ranch Rd.
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A replay and examination on a large screen TV indicate Karl also got a miss.
