IOTA Asteroidal Occultation, Mid-Atlantic Occultation, Eclipse, and Lunar Impactors Page

The main purpose of this Web site is to provide information about some of the better-observed asteroidal occultations, mainly for those observed in North America; to give detailed predictions for, and plans for expeditions in, the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.A., especially in Maryland and the greater Washington, DC area; and to provide images and historical background about observations of lunar meteor impacts, especially the first confirmed ones that David Dunham video recorded in 1999 and 2001 during Leonids storms.

Click here to enter this Web site described above.

Steven Conard becomes administrator of this site

With Dunham's retirement as an employee of the Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) effective at close of business 2008 Feb. 29, he lost access to the server on which this Web site is hosted. His APL colleague, Jose Guzman, administered the site from March 2008 until he left APL on 2009 January 16. Another APL colleague, and president of the APL Astronomy Club, Steve Conard, has now become the administrator of this Web site, and will upload update files that Dunham provides. Some of the more active Web pages will probably be hosted on another server soon; when that happens, the URL and a link will be prominently posted here. After Feb. 29, Dunham started working as a contractor 2 days a week at APL.

Unfortunately, this Web site is not organized well, with the items just in chronological order as they were added (but that's good if you want information about an event whose date you know). Links to some of the more important sub-pages of my site are below, after the links to other IOTA sites.

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Links to other important Web sites of the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA)

IOTA's administrative Web site for membership, Occultation Newsletters online, links to other sites, etc.

IOTA's main technical Web site mainly providing predictions for lunar total and grazing occultations, but also important for other general technical information about observing and for downloading prediction software, especially Dave Herald's WinOccult program, now the mainstay of IOTA's work (you can have your own copy free).

This comprehensive site about asteroidal occultations, assembled by Brad Timerson, gives links to Web sites worldwide where the latest results are posted, as well as to many other very useful prediction and observation Web sites. It has links to forms for reporting asteroidal occultations.

Worldwide asteroidal occultation predictions by Steve Preston - This gives most of the accurately updated predictions of asteroidal occultations using the latest high-accuracy astrometric observations from the U. S. Naval Observatory's FASTT program in Flagstaff, AZ and from other observatories. Besides accurate path predictions and maps, detailed finder charts of different scales are usually included to locate the target stars.

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IOTA Manual

Updated files provided by Richard Nugent - Updated 2007 Aug. 29

Much information about observing occultations of all types is in "Chasing the Shadow: The IOTA Occultation Observer's Manual" available for free download here. Some additional information about using the ACLPPP profiles is here.

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The Latest Information about Observations of Lunar Meteors

Observers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have recorded scores of lunar meteor impacts during the last few years; links are provided to their interesting and informative Web site, as well as that of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers by Brian Cudnik, also an IOTA member. Also read about lunar Perseids and lunar Leonids, including extensive documentation of the discovery 1999 and 2001 observations, and earlier extensive historical information, here. If you are set up to accurately time and video record telescopic celestial phenomena, you are encouraged to observe the Moon for both lunar meteor impacts and occultations.

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A Primer on Timing Occultations - updated 2002 Dec. 31

Click here for information on timing occultations, especially for those just getting started. Visual timing techniques are described, as well as information about getting started with video, which is easier than most realize. BUT since this was written, an IMPORTANT PROBLEM has been found with the alarms of the self-setting clocks; they seem to be purposely delayed; click here for more information. As described in the item, some tests and calibrations will be needed before we can rely on these clocks for timings accurate enough for occultation work, but with proper tests, it will probably be possible to make accurate timings with at least some models of these clocks. And they are better than nothing if neither shortwave time signals nor GPS timing with 1PPS are not available. See the IOTA Manual with link given above, for more information.

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Value of Lunar and Asteroidal Occultations - new here 2003 Jan. 6

Read about the value of lunar (total and grazing) occultation observations here and Paul Maley's good article on the value and practice of observing asteroidal occultations here. Paul's article gives much useful practical advice for video and visual observers.

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2007 Annual IOTA Meeting, Pasco, WA, July 20-21 - Updated 2007 Aug. 6, 21h UT

Information about the meeting, including the latest version of the agenda, is here. Election of IOTA officers for the next 3 years occurred at this meeting. Many of the presentations are now on this Web site and there a links to most of the others, and to some photoes and the meeting minutes.

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Occultations by Pluto and Charon to 2020 - updated 2004 July 21

Click here for a list of occultations of UCAC2 stars that will be occulted by either Pluto or Charon (or by both) from 2004 to 2020, computed by David Herald with Occult using the latest ephemeris for Pluto, and orbital elements for Charon relative to Pluto. The occelmnt file that can be used to obtain details and maps of these events with the Occult program is here; it is a plain ASCII text file.

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Last updated 2009 January 16 Steven Conard, J.H.U./A.P.L. Phone: 240-228-8407 e-mail: Steven.Conard@jhuapl.edu and David Dunham, President, I.O.T.A. Phone: home 301-474-4722 office 240-228-5609 car 301-526-5590 e-mail: dunham@starpower.net (home) and david.dunham@kinetx.com (office)