The Occultation of a W=10.6 Star for 0.4s by Asteroid 1996 UT1

Fri night at 10:04:46pm March 20, 2026

OWc page

 

This is another bright easy occultation. But the rank is so-so. This one is also a good bet for Karl. His place is inside the shadow. It misses Aptos and Jordan, most likely, but since it is only 10 minutes after the first event, it should be tried anyway. The first event tonight, by asteroid Swift, is easy to find - don't bother with RA and Dec, just push the "deep sky" button and punch in for star cluster M38, which is in Auriga. ID the star, then go back and spend more time getting familiar with the star field in Orion for this 1996 UT1 event, so you can return to it quickly w/o having to swap out the camera, and puzzle over the star patterns.

Caveats: This star is extremely red. With a B-V of 2.3. It's magnitude is asterisked as an AAVSO star. Perhaps an irregular red giant, but it might also be a long period variable in which case it's magnitude could be very different. Be prepared for that. The RUWE is 1.4, which is "meh", and could be an additional source of path shift.  I hope Jordan can go for it even though the nominal path is a bit north of her.

Alt=40, Az=249 in Orion about 5 degrees to the right of Betelgeuse

     

 

Results:

Richard Nolthenius

Good conditions. Warm. calm. Got this at Canham Rd at East Glenview Open Space gravel parking lot. At 2x. Alas, a clear miss, from near the centerline, just like Kirk's miss.

         

 

Kirk Bender

Observed and recorded. I got a miss for 1996 UT1, 2x, on Quail Hollow road after the Swift event.  I was closer to the centerline than to the path boundary, but still no apparent event. PyOTE detectability test reports an event as short as 0.110s would likely be detectable, max predicted was 0.42s.