The Occultation of a R=8.0 (r=9.3) Star by Asteroid 2000 AW13

Sun morn Feb 9 at 3:10:14am

OWc page

 

This is a very bright event, but the rank is not perfect. From home, I'm in the 1-sigma zone. Centerline run through Scotts Valley and also Vick Rd. The duration is only 0.3s, Alt=49, Az=289 in the West, in Lynx. Definitely do at 1x and no more.

Location: I plan to drive to Vick Rd in BD to get all 3 of these events between 2:07am and 3:15am. Hopefully Kirk may try this one from home, as the rank says it still has a decent chance to give a positive from Santa Cruz. Karl's odds are much less. Sandy in Aptos is also a good spot to try it.

     

 

Results:

 

Richard Nolthenius

I observed from the corner of Vick Rd ant a dirt road, about 35 ft up the dirt road north from Vick. Temperatures were quite cold, in the 30's no doubt. I was still shivering even with the MonteBell and down jacket both, with layers underneath. However, this was the 3rd event of a series in BD, so no doubt I'd lost any accumulated heat from the drive up now already 2 hrs earlier. I set the Watec at 1x, reduced it in 'field mode'. I saw a clear 0.3s blink about the right time. The star was not twinkling so must have still been saturated.  Kirk also got a recording. Not sure about Karl or Sandy.

       

 

Kirk Bender

Looks like a miss for 2000 AW13, 1x at the UCSC trail crossing, I don't see any event near the predicted time distinct from the rest of the curve. Predicted max duration was 0.27 sec. with 10.7m drop.  Pyote detectability tool reports an event as short as 0.031 sec would be likely detectable.