The Occultation of a W=13.0 combined by Photographica
Aug 24, 2025 Sun eve at 11:31:26pm
This event is high rank and covers all of our team. Karl is inside but near the northern limit. The duration is a nice long 3.3s, allowing some integration to get a decent signal. The target is in Ophiuchus, just a degree or two below the bottom star on the left side of Serpens. Beware the drop is only 0.8 magnitude, and the combined image is 13.0 magnitude so it should look brighter than the neighbor star on the chart.
Alt=20, Az=226 in the SW
Results:
Kirk needed to drive to the Central Valley for work early the next morning, and so he skipped this one.
Richard Nolthenius
Unfortunately, my telescope had a series of failures. I failed to get 2-star alignments over and over. I vowed to stay and not pack up until I got it to work. I changed batteries (was the original getting too weak???) I changed stars, and even when it did say "success", it aimed badly towards known Messier objects. On my final try, I used Polaris and Altair, and it seemed to work OK. The trouble started with my first site, at Lllama Ranch Rd in Cave Gulch, and wires and some construction made me instead go to Twin Gates, where I had tree trouble. I eventually set up very close to some poison oak and almost in the main road, to have some confidence the target would not occult behind some redwoods. All of that penalized me on time for trying to recover from the telescope's antics. I don't really know why. I'll have some trepidation on the next event, since I'm not sure why it was having trouble. However, since I did get it to aim properly given a bit more time, ultimately the trouble was not allowing enough time. And so - I get a red "fumble" on this one.
Karl von Ahnen
RN: Got an event centered at 6:31:25 UT, which is right on schedule. The signifance in the NIE is over 3 sigma. Looks solid to me.
