IOTA/IOTA-ES occultation update for (1030) Vitja / TYC 4968-00661-1 event on 2012 Apr 28, 01:50 UT Visible from

E USA, SE Canada Summary ------On 2012 Apr 28 UT, the 58 km diameter asteroid (1030) Vitja will occult a 9.7 mag star in the constellation Virgo for observers along a path across E USA, SE Canada. In the case of an occultation, the combined light of the asteroid and the star will drop by 4.6 mag to 14.2 mag (the magnitude of the asteroid) for at most 5.1 seconds. Target star information: Name: TYC 4968-00661-1 Magntiude: Visual, 9.7 Position (J2000): RA: 13:52:15.6086 Dec - 1 deg 43 min 55.415 sec For the Finger Lakes region, the occultation will occur near 9:57:32 pm EDT. The accuracy in time is +/- 4 seconds. Observers should begin monitoring the star at 9:57:00 pm and continue until 9:58:00 pm. Ionia is within the predicted shadow path for this event. Below is a map from a planning program called OccultWatcher showing the central occultation path (green line), outside edges of the shadow (blue lines) and chords of observers (narrow lines).

Below is a wide-field view of Virgo with the area of the target star marked.

Those without GOTO telescopes may want to take advantage of a pre-point opportunity. Find the star Porrima, (gamma) Virginis after skies darken. Place Porrima near the top of the field of a low power eyepiece. At precisely 8:47:07 pm EDT turn off your clock drive. At the event time of 9:57:32 pm, the target will have drifted into view because of the earths rotation. Below is a view showing a 2 degree field near and around the target.

The star marked 90 is HIP 67929 and is magnitude 5.2.

And here is the close-up view of the targets field:

The star to the lower right of the target is magnitude 10.0.

Besides knowing your exact location and elevation (can be taken from Google Earth), an accurate time source is crucial to a scientifically useful observation. A tape recorder can be used to record audio signals such as WWV as you provide voice information. A simple gone and back at the appropriate times is all that is needed. Then, use a stopwatch and several measuring trials to come up with the times for the disappearance and reappearance. Also, keep track of how confident you are of an accurate time. All observers are surprised when these events occur, something we call Personal Equation. Believe it or not, experience has shown that typical PE values, even for experienced observers, are 0.7 to 1.0 seconds. In other words, the event occurred that much earlier than what you were able to time. If you dont have access to WWV or GPS time signals, the time stamp shown at the top of the webpage below has been shown to be within 0.5 seconds of true Universal Time. You could run a standard video camera capturing that time stamp as you called out the events. http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/NA/ The best option is to use a low light video camera hooked directly to the telescope. You would still need a way to get accurate time on the same recording, something that is beyond the scope of this article.