The Winchester Occultation - Aug 29, 2010
This
was one of those "sure thing" large asteroid events that draws
out multiple observers. The path was predicted to cross all of the Big Sur
coast top to bottom, and odds at Cabrillo were low enough to motivate me
to drive south. There were 5 observers for this event on OccultWatcher. Walt
Morgan planned to drive down I5 to a bit north of my planned site - Gloria
Road just north of Pinnacles National Monument. This would allow me to get
above any fog, as the road tops out at 2400 ft elevation. The first cold
front of the oncoming Fall came through California today, passing over the
central coast during the afternoon. That meant the marine layer might mix
out, but that higher elevations could get orographic clouds, so it was no
longer clear where I should set up. It was clear and felt dry in Santa Cruz
what with the northerly flow, as I left at 1:00am. Picked up the scope and
gear, and got on Hwy 1. Then I hit fog just south of Watsonville, so I mentally
figured I'd indeed head up to the top of Gloria Rd. South of Salinas, the
fog became broken and then mostly clear, but clouds indeed were forming over
the Gabilan Range ridge line, so that option was out. I figured I'd get as
far south as I could to stay ahead of fog moving down the Salinas Valley,
and set up just a little ways up Gloria Rd to hopefully still get the star
at low 18 deg above the eastern horizon in Monoceros, but not in the ridge
line clouds. I got set up in a vineyard about 3 miles up Gloria Rd, positioned
the car to block the breeze, got all the gear going well, located the very
faint target star in the eyepiece. But had a lot of trouble getting it visible
on the LCD screen. The occultation was only to last 5 seconds and given the
other observers, it seemed most important to get a good video signal rather
than a tough, low 
accuracy
visual timing - so I committed to video and kept trying, but as time ran
out, the fog came down valley and covered most of the sky and was just beginning
to cover and uncover the target star. I never did get the target on-screen,
although I thought maybe I had. After the event, I spent a half hour trying
to verify what had in fact been recorded, but it was definitely the wrong
star. And then, playback showed the Canon ZR45mc camcorder had partially/mostly
garbled the recording. Failed again. Damn. That's 3 critical events, starting
with the Hayabusa Mission in Australia where it has failed me. 3 strikes
rule comes in, and I've got to find something new...
This
was one of those "sure thing" large asteroid events that draws
out multiple observers. The path was predicted to cross all of the Big Sur
coast top to bottom, and odds at Cabrillo were low enough to motivate me
to drive south. There were 5 observers for this event on OccultWatcher. Walt
Morgan planned to drive down I5 to a bit north of my planned site - Gloria
Road just north of Pinnacles National Monument. This would allow me to get
above any fog, as the road tops out at 2400 ft elevation. The first cold
front of the oncoming Fall came through California today, passing over the
central coast during the afternoon. That meant the marine layer might mix
out, but that higher elevations could get orographic clouds, so it was no
longer clear where I should set up. It was clear and felt dry in Santa Cruz
what with the northerly flow, as I left at 1:00am. Picked up the scope and
gear, and got on Hwy 1. Then I hit fog just south of Watsonville, so I mentally
figured I'd indeed head up to the top of Gloria Rd. South of Salinas, the
fog became broken and then mostly clear, but clouds indeed were forming over
the Gabilan Range ridge line, so that option was out. I figured I'd get as
far south as I could to stay ahead of fog moving down the Salinas Valley,
and set up just a little ways up Gloria Rd to hopefully still get the star
at low 18 deg above the eastern horizon in Monoceros, but not in the ridge
line clouds. I got set up in a vineyard about 3 miles up Gloria Rd, positioned
the car to block the breeze, got all the gear going well, located the very
faint target star in the eyepiece. But had a lot of trouble getting it visible
on the LCD screen. The occultation was only to last 5 seconds and given the
other observers, it seemed most important to get a good video signal rather
than a tough, low 
accuracy
visual timing - so I committed to video and kept trying, but as time ran
out, the fog came down valley and covered most of the sky and was just beginning
to cover and uncover the target star. I never did get the target on-screen,
although I thought maybe I had. After the event, I spent a half hour trying
to verify what had in fact been recorded, but it was definitely the wrong
star. And then, playback showed the Canon ZR45mc camcorder had partially/mostly
garbled the recording. Failed again. Damn. That's 3 critical events, starting
with the Hayabusa Mission in Australia where it has failed me. 3 strikes
rule comes in, and I've got to find something new...