The Occultation of a W=12.2 Star for 0.2 sec by Asteroid ( ) 1999 MH43

Fri eve Feb 13, 2026 at 7:10:38pm

OWc page

 

This is a likely do-able event, bright at 12.2 but will require 1x most likely to do well. But if there's no wind, there will be no moon and skies pitch black, likely do-able at 1x.

Alt=45, Az=98 in Cancer.

The centerline is 4.19 miles south of the intersection of Hwy 190 along Panamint Valley Rd, to a little shallow hollow on the east side of the road.  The rank is not great but the RUWE is 0.9 which is good.  We may only try this event if we are laalte in leaving and or lose too much time and can't get into the valley before dark.

     

 

Results:

I expected to be driving through Panamint Valley 3 hours before the event, and with enough daylight to explore Mosaic Canyon and enjoy dinner with the TDRC group. But due to upexpected delays, Kirk and I arrived at this part of Panamint Valley at, as it turned out, just the right time to go ahead and try this event. I set Kirk at the little dirt turn-out visible on the GE maps, and I set up about 0.4 miles north of him, on the east side of the Panamint Valley Rd.

Richard Nolthenius

I set up on the east side of the van to shield from the wind, which was pretty successful I got a recording at 1x of the target and saw a distinct drop to zero for about 0.2s at the predicted time while watching live. Because the terrain here was so featureless, I decided to use the IOTA VTI position switch to get my coordinates. I got the elevation off the Google Earth map.

long= 117 23 02.43"
Lat = 36 17 37.20"
Elev= 479m

Remarkably, the path seemed to be quite accurate in a north-south sense, with Kirk getting a 0.20 s event from the centerline, as predicted, and I got a 0.09s event from near the northern limit. But the event was 1.7s early, which is 8 diameters early. The predicted event time was (rounded to the nearest second, as OWc does) 7:10:38pm PST.

NIE test = 8.6 sigma
magDrop report: percentDrop: 100.0 (magDrop cannot be calculated because A is negative)

DNR: 2.86

D time: [03:10:36.2452]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0040} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0107} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0232} seconds

R time: [03:10:36.3383]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0040} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0107} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0232} seconds

Duration (R - D): 0.0931 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0059} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0136} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0302} second

 

     



Kirk Bender

Observed from the small indent into the desert of loose sandy tracks on the west side of Panamint Valley Rd near the centerline of this event.