2009 Astro Events

Jan 2 Fri eve - Graze of 4.5 Lambda Piscium 6s of 36+ moon, 22 degrees alt, from Castroville. Here is the planning page. Results: Only me on this one, as it turned out. Got 4 timings. Here's the IOTA report.

Jan 3 Sat eve - An afternoon and evening at Oak Ridge Observatory with Chris Kitting doing test imaging.

Jan 27 Wed morn 6:40am - Occultation of 8.7 star by Ara from Monterey Bay, Results: A succcesful 2 second occultation video'd. Reduction page.

Feb 3 Tue morn 2:35am - Occultation of 12.0 star by 10.5 Athamantis; mag drop=0.24. Results; a probably miss but well video'd. Reduction page.

Feb 20 Fri eve - A brief photo session for Comet Lulin, my first. Photos on a Comet Lulin gallery page.

Mar 7 Sat eve - Graze of 3.9 mag Delta Cancri from Mt. Diablo State Park. Fun adventure exploring the park and grazing, see my page here.

Mar 20-22 - Astro 28L: Field Astronomy in the Big Sur Mountains. Results: A great trip; see the photos here.

Mar 29 - Occultation of 10.8 star by Astarte, at 11 deg altitude from Santa Cruz area. Results: Observed from turnout above Karl's place for a miss. Here's the report.

Mar 30 - Occultation of 12.1 star by Metcalfia, 66% success odds from Santa Cruz. Results: Observed from Pogonip overlook, successful 3 sec event. Report.

Apr 17-19 - Astro 27 Pinnacles Field Astronomy class. Here's the photo page.

Apr 22 - Occultation of Venus by 8- moon. Beautiful! But my photography was not well planned. Maybe I'll eventually make a (lame) photo page.

May 6 Wed eve 11:41pm - Occultation of 11.8 star from Santa Cruz by Lampetia. High rank, a very high liklihood of success. Moon 96- but far away from the star. Results: Successful 14 sec video-recorded occultation!

May 15-17 Fri-Sun - Astro 28U "Field Astronomy (at Mt. Lassen National Park)" . Results: The trip was a big success. See for yourself

Jun 28 Sun morn 3am - Occultation of 11.6 star by Juewa, from near Bradley (odds 66%). Results: Success! Here's the page.

July 16 Thur eve - Tech Trek (AAUW-sponsored event for gifted young girls) at Stanford - Observing evening. A lot of fun - here's a few pix.

Jul 25 Sat morn - A trip to Oak Ridge Observatory with Chris Kitting to video the new comet impact site on Jupiter. Here's the story.

Aug 8 Sat eve 11pm - Occultation of by Siwa (10.2 combined, 0.5 drop), from Ponderosa campground Big Sur, wide path and high rank.Results: A successful ~14sec occultation. Here's the story.

Aug 12 Wed morn - Perseids meteor shower. Observed from Highland Way with Karl, Garth, and Shahram and friends. My photos nabbed zero perseids. The predicted 200/hr rate from 1-2am didn't quite happen for us. The ~40 ZHR may have gone to ~100 ZHR from 1am to ~1:20am and then dropped back although formal counts were not made.

Aug 14 Fri morn 2am - Perfect occultation of the Pleiades on 41- moon. Graze of 3.6 Electra 6N of 43- moon at alt=17 from Danville. Results: Successful video of a nice graze on 7 lunar mountains, with Chris Kitting. Here's the story.

Sep 17-20 Thur-Sun - Expedition to Barcroft Labs in the White Mountains, for photography and testing equipment for the astro lab classes. A most excellent adventure, detailed here.

Sep 25-27 Fri-Sun - Astro 28E trip to Sequoia National Monument (Quaking Aspen campground). Clear skies and a solid 2 stations worth of data on the graze of ZC 2771. See the post-trip here.

Oct 1 Thur eve - Occultation of 11.1 star by 11.7 Siwa, from Monterey Bay. Results: A miss - from Moss Landing. Here's the report.

Oct 9-11 Fri-Sun - Astro 27/Geo 27 Pinnacles Field class. Our biannual tradition this time also features a graze! Oct 10 1:45am - Double graze; 8.9 and 7.1 3s of 61- moon from Pinnacles Campground. Here's the planning page. Results: Perfect weather, a good trip. Here's the post-trip photo page.

Nov 14 Sat - Astro 9 optional photo trip to Bonny Doon Airfield. Results: Perfect weather, but only Fred and Duncan actually showed up. Got good shots of several objects, including the choice targets in Orion.

Nov 15 Sun eve 10pm eve - Occultation of 11.0 star by Desiderata from Santa Cruz. 90% success odds, New moon. sigma=0.29 pathwidthds. This is a good one! Results: Jay and I watched a miss from Cabrillo, a very strong north shift skunked nearly the entire large team of observers across the country. Here's the .xls report.

Nov 17 Tue eve 7pm - Occultation of 13.3 star (12.2 combined) by Emma. Cabrillo inside uncertainty zone; try from Cabrillo before Astro 8A class. Results: Success! A 10 second occultation from Cabrillo. Here's the report.

Nov 21 Sat morn - Occultations by Oceana, and then by Meliboea, from Cabrillo Observatory. Results: Both were misses. Here's the story and reports.

Nov 25 Wed morn 2am - Occultation by Aurora, from Santa Cruz. Results: Successful 7 second occultation. Here's the story.

Dec 17 Thur eve 11:30pm - Occultation of 12.3 star by Rusthawelia from Santa Cruz. 33% odds from Cabrillo. Results: Got a recording, maybe the star's on it. VERY tough. Derek had a miss 15km track away. Will stack to see if I got anything sometime.

Dec 24 Thur eve 9:00pm - Occultation of 8.5 star by Terpsichore, from Santa Cruz. "sure thing". Results: Tried it from the Delucchi's. Dew ruined it. Missed the best occn of the past 2 years.