This event is do-able if skies behave, but that's very iffy as I write this. Clouds are coming in. The path favors the coast of Santa Cruz, unless you're willing to go to Watsonville. I'm hoping it's clear enough to justify a drive to West Cliff at Natural Bridges.
Alt=66, Az=101 in Auriga
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The forecast said 90% clouds, but the skies were pretty clear until just before the event when some thin cloud was off in the north, but did not seem to ever go over the target during my 3 minute recording. I recorded at 4x. The star was bright enough to watch easily on every integration, and clearly disappeared for aboujt 0.5 seconds. The predictions looked to be pretty good.
I observed at the entrance to Natural Bridges. I did have trouble, however, as the mount initally gave me a "align succeed" using Polaris and Betelguese. But then a GoTo M37 failed, and M35 failed as well, being off by at least 5 degrees. I immediately turned off the mount and re-started, using Procyon and Hamal. The GoTo was still not perfect, but M35 was just off the eyepiece FOV. I did a "GoTo" the target and after a couple of minutes of spiral-search, I did ID the star pattern and got on-target in enough time. There were very thin clouds moving at low altitude, some drifted through the target before the event, but did not compromise a good solution for the event positive. The waves were well-calibrated out of the target light curve.
Start: 06:12:02 UT, End:06:14:32 UT
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magDrop report: percentDrop: 89.4 magDrop: 2.435 +/- 0.483 (0.95 ci)
DNR: 3.38
D time: [06:13:40.4082]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0149} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0382} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0775} seconds
R time: [06:13:40.8882]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0149} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0382} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0775} seconds
Duration (R - D): 0.4800 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0212} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0484} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0868} seconds
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I got a 0.5672s event for Hylak, 2x on Delaware ave. by the Marine lab on Dec. 18. There were thin clouds in the sky, but the light curves are fairly flat, apparently clouds did not move into the target area until after the recording.
NIE Sigma distance 12.5
magDrop report: percentDrop: 93.0 magDrop: 2.883 +/- 1.549 (0.95 ci)
DNR: 2.32
D time: [06:13:40.3240]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0127} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0385} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0905} seconds
R time: [06:13:40.8912]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0127} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0385} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0905} seconds
Duration (R - D): 0.5672 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0196} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0497} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.1022} seconds
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