Grazing Occulation early Thu Dec 11

Wednesday 10th of December 2008 | Don Pullen

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It’s currently clear skies in Burlington as I write this. I just checked and noticed that there will be a grazing occultation early Thurs morning at about 3am. I got the info from Brad Timerson’s website:
http://www.timerson.net/IOTA/

The moon will be skimming ZC537, a mag 3.7 star, elevation 33deg, azimuth 274deg (almost due west). It appears that it is in Taurus (aka 17 Tauri). The star will pass along the southern limb of the moon.

It’s a bright star and should be naked eye visible, so you won’t need much equipment. The moon is nearly full, but you may get lucky a catch part of it near the dark portion. So maybe a filter (variable) might be helpful.

The center of the track will be just south (about 2km) of Binbrook CA, so it will be visible from our regular observing area.

Here are some of the details:

E. Longit.   Latitude     U.T.    Sun  Moon   TanZ   PA    AA      CA
   o  '  "    o  '  "   h  m  s   Alt Alt Az          o     o      o
- 80 30  0   43 15 48   8  7  9       34 273  1.49 174.8 188.06   4.24S
- 80  0  0   43  6 59   8  7 40       33 273  1.52 174.9 188.13   4.17S
- 79 30  0   42 58  3   8  8 11       33 274  1.55 175.0 188.20   4.09S
- 79  0  0   42 48 59   8  8 41       32 274  1.57 175.1 188.28   4.02S

If the conditions hold (CSC doesn’t report the current clearing, so who knows), and if you’re feeling brave enough, give it a try. I know I’ll be snug in my bed, but others may be more adventurous.

If you don’t like this one, the next one in our area will be on Dec 17 visible from the waterfront in Mississauga at about 6:20am. (ZC1705, a mag 7.6 star.

Good luck.

Update 21:50 – Hmmm, just checked Heavens Above http://www.heavens-above.com and it appears that there are 3 comets between mag 9.5 and 11.3 located in the area between Taurus and Ares and Triangulum. P/2008 Q2 Ory(mag 9.5), 144P Kushida(mag 11.1), and P/2008 QP20 Linear-Hill(mag 11.3).