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I once had a telescope almost as badly collimated as that…
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/11/photons-received-webb-sees-its-first-star-18-times/
Seriously though, I agree it’s fascinating to read the Webb blog
Such well-written and informative articles by the team, explaining an amazing technical achievement in an easy to understand manner.
Alex.
Hi Tim,
We have a lot of experience in recording various types of occultations, and as you say we followed the guidelines for this event and promoted the campaign amongst BAA observers. Many obtained good light curves. Looking at the figures in the paper, their criterion for selecting light curves (for the atmospheric modelling) even rejected the data from the 1-metre at Pic du Midi, no less. They had 90 light curves, so they could be selective.
Note: “…the first group of figures corresponds to light curves that had sufficient S/N to be used in Triton’s atmospheric fit, while the second group is for light curves with lower S/N that were not used in the fit. It should be noted, however, that the best synthetic models expected for those light curves (plotted in grey in Figs. C.6-C.9) are fully consistent with the observations, in the limit of the noise level.”
They received lots of good data and I’m sure we’ll contribute even better light curves next time.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi Michael,
In addition to this paper modelling Triton’s atmosphere
Occult – Minor Planet occultation observations – Summary lists
gives the diameter and astrometric position of Triton derived from chord timings submitted by observers.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi Michael,
I’m sure the S/N of the light curves would have been good enough to give an astrometric position and shape profile of an asteroid / TNO, but in this paper they’re studying Triton’s atmosphere, so their modelling has more demanding criteria. They rejected data from a 50cm scope because of light contamination from Neptune.
Bruno once explained – In the case of modelling the atmospheres of solar system bodies, lower quality data provides astrometry, defining the position and shape of the body (the chords across Triton), and higher quality data are used to model its atmospheric density, temperature gradient, winds, etc.
For a future campaign we need an image scale providing good separation between planet and moon, a S/N of ~10 (although magnitude of target and duration of occultation limits our choices), and a 12-bit sensor (or better) to capture more detail in the light curve.
It’s quite a challenge to get good data. The Lucky Star team were delighted to have 90 light curves from this pro-am campaign.
Cheers,
Alex.
The preprint of the formal paper by Joana Marques Oliveira et al has been published on ArXiV
https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.10450
The analysis and paper were the subject of her PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof Bruno Sicardy (Observatoire de Paris). Here’s a video of Joana’s defence of her thesis
Soutenance de thèse – Joana Marques Oliveira – YouTube
A number of UK observers recorded the occultation and contributed to this work.
Alex.
Hi Nick,
In this case the relative distances to the 3-sigma zones weren’t as large as some events. There’s uncertainties in the asteroid’s orbit (hopefully to be improved with Gaia DR3) and there were no Gaia flags against the star, although it had no RUWE value, which probably contributed to the shift.There’s a recent discussion of RUWE here:
https://groups.io/g/IOTAoccultations/message/71022
We’ll continue to have some significant path shifts until the final Data Releases from Gaia minimise the uncertainties in asteroid orbits and stellar positions.
Alex.
Many thanks to everyone who attempted an observation. Most were clouded out unfortunately, except that I was fortunate to record the occultation during a convenient gap in the fast-moving clouds. Simon Kidd (Cottered) observed a miss event. Jesus Delgado (Spain) recorded an occultation of 58s duration. I used the Occult program to obtain this profile of Medea.
 Medea 20220121.png)
The ellipse is fitted to only two well-separated chords, so regard it as a simplified representation of Medea’s true shape. Simon’s line delimits the eastern edge of the shadow track and suggests he was close to obtaining a brief ‘blink’ occultation. The asteroid’s shadow path was ~55 km to the east of the predicted track.
If only we’d had better weather to obtain more chords across Medea.
Thanks Michael.
Medea’s event is at an altitude of ~60 degrees from our latitudes, so even if there’s thin cloud a slightly longer exposure / integration setting can be used without compromising the value of timing of a chord across this slow mover.
You’re getting some wide tracks across Ireland, such as Brita later this evening, although it’s to the north of you
https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/385-1071-123422-649676-U042816
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi Paul, My interest was to see the range of sky conditions affecting the members, so a simple ‘Bortle 4’ tag suffices for me. Not everyone will have (access to) a SQM, so they can assess their site by using online references to the Bortle Scale and either use the partly subjective descriptions, e.g. “Bortle 4- NELM 6.1-6.5 and M33 is a difficult averted vision object, only visible when high in the sky” criteria or via their SQM reading, as you say. Clear – and dark – skies, Alex.
Hi Denis,
The track is generally well established, although the observed track is often displaced some km from the predicted track. There’s small uncertainties in the asteroid’s orbit and the star’s position is well defined. More event details and an interactive ground track map are available in Occult Watcher Cloud
https://cloud.occultwatcher.net/event/385-212-63655-649640-U011811
Click on the world map, drag and zoom in to Tarbat Ness. Click at your location on the map and you’ll see your event mid-time is 20:13:20 UT, although your site is quite distant from the predicted shadow track (blue lines) and 1-sigma band (red lines).
It’s worthwhile observing because Tim mentioned the importance of probing the space around Medea. Some asteroids have satellite moons and have been discovered by occultation observations. I suggest recording for 5 minutes centred on the mid-time.
Clear skies,
Alex.
JWST first light…
This tongue-in-cheek image has been doing the rounds
Originally a bit of fun by ESA staff for an earlier mission
https://twitter.com/esa/status/1479405861130977280/photo/1
Alex.
Hi Phil,
This posting on the MPML forum (Archive visible to all) confirm its changes in brightness
JWST 095 Observations (groups.io)
After observing other targets last night I had a look at JWST to get some video astrometry. By then thin cloud was coming and going. I haven’t reduce my data but at Jan 7.903472 it was near to mag 15, but a while later at 7.905556 it looked to be around mag 14.5.
Cheers,
Alex.
From a selfish point of view I welcome the delay in launching JWST, at least until there’s a chance of any clearing in this interminable cloud cover to observe it. The JWST will get to L2 before I see any stars again…!
Alex.
Thanks Nick,
It’s certainly a balancing act! That would be useful advice for the Equipment and Techniques News, if not submitted already.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Michael,
My C11 is mounted on my Losmandy G11. A local amateur has offered me his side-by-side bar similar to this model
ADM D Series Side By Side Bar With Dual Load Saddles – Rother Valley Optics Ltd
to add my 4-inch apo refractor. I haven’t taken the plunge.
The separation between the OTAs provided by this specific bar is probably too small for your ‘scopes.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi all,
Eric Frappa has now added the observed chords to the Euraster website and fitted them to a DAMIT shape model
euraster.net – 2021 European Asteroidal Occultation Results
Clear skies,
Alex.
Thanks Tim,
I missed that, in between all the Pallas reports. The paper contains the barest mention of occultations. I suggest posting your message to IOTAoccultations and UKoccultations, to bring it to a wider audience. Also the taster video:
Meet 42 Asteroids in Our Solar System (ESOcast 243 Light) | ESO United Kingdom
Cheers,
Alex.
About 1/3rd of Leeds’ citizens are wearing facemasks on public transport and in shops. I recently had a mini-break in Liverpool, travelled by coach and I was the only passenger wearing a mask. I made my choice; other passengers made theirs. I don’t mind wearing a mask at the AGM.
I hope the IoP won’t be directing spotlights at the audience and view screens as done previously. We’ve been spoilt by meetings on Zoom and YouTube, seeing the speakers’ excellent slides in all their glory, instead of squinting through the Bortle 9+ glare of the brightly lit lecture theatre trying to glimpse the washed out screens. Heaven help a speaker who shows a deep sky image. Please switch off the spotlights and dim the theatre lighting during presentations.
Cheers,
Alex.
