Valda is a large, low number asteroid and the event has a high nominal rank. However, the path is mostly in Monterey Bay. The northern limit clips the south coast of Santa Cruz. From my site at West Cliff where it enters Natural Bridges State Beach, the formal prediction is for a 2.0s event and for the combined object to fade from W=13.37 mag to 14.5. The OWc prediction, however, in V, says it fades by 0.77 mag, not 1.17 mag. I'm using the formal B and V magnitudes and Hristo Pavlov's formula for conversion to W (Watec) magnitudes to get the target star at W=13.85 magnitude. The OWc page shows the asteroid is at 14.5 magnitude (but might be brighter in the W band?). The centerline duration is long: 4.1s, but if the target is right on course, the duration should be 2.0s at my location, and rapidly less as you go north. A slight north shift would be good. A slight south shift may mean no event at all.
The only way to get a better longer event is south of Watsonville. I'll try from locally, instead. From just a few yards north of the West Cliff entrance to Natural Bridges State Beach.
Alt=62, Az=277, high in the West in Auriga
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I had a clear miss, I guess a slight south shift happened. Kirk a miss too.
I tried re-making an OCR file for this event, to see if I can solve my OCR problem. It did solve the problem, for this occultation. PyMovie could OCR all frames OK. I don't now whether that OCR profile will work for other events. I'll have to find out. For this event, it was a clear miss. No hint of an occultation.
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No apparent event for Valda, 8x on Delaware ave. Jan 17. There were thin clouds elsewhere but looked clear in the target area. We were near the northern limit so maybe not surprising. Either a miss or too short to detect. PyOTE detectability tool reports an event as short as 0.7s would likely be detectable, max predicted was 4.12s.
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