Spectacular Eclipse of delta Capricorni by thin crescent Moon, Sat. evening, Jan. 20, 2007
The spectacular graze was observed southeast of Tappahannock, Virginia and north of Elkin, N. Carolina
Updated: 2007 January 22, 8 pm EST
Early Saturday evening, Jan. 20th, shortly after sunset, the thin crescent Moon, only 4% sunlit, eclipsed the relatively bright (mag. 2.9) star delta Capricorni (Deneb Algedi) for observers in populous parts of the northeastern U.S.A., Ontario, and Quebec. An account of the remarkable event, which produced the best graze in the Mid- Atlantic States in 2007, is below, in the form of a message to George Gliba and other members of the Astronomical Society of Greenbelt. Prediction information and plans, including views of the Moon and maps of the graze path, are here. From: Dunham, David Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 5:16 PM Subject: McNaught's tail, delta Cap spectacular occ'n, & Palma event Thurs/Fri. night [George Gliba reported seeing 3 streamers of Comet McNaught's tail from West Virginia Saturday evening.] George, While you were watching Comet McNaught's tail in W. Va., Wayne Warren, Jeff Guerber, and I were in central Virginia, about 50 miles southeast of Fredericksburg, where we had a great view of the most spectacular grazing occultation of the year for our region, of 2.9- mag. delta Capricorni on the dark side of the thin crescent Moon, only 4% sunlit. I recorded good video of it at 3 stations. Sorry we didn't have more observers come down to observe this rare event. I looked for the tail of McNaught, also, but couldn't see it due to the light dome of Richmond in that direction. You didn't mention the total occultation, which was visible throughout W. Va., and DC and almost all of Maryland, as well as northern VA - did you see it? Mike Chesnes saw it from Laurel, MD and Guy Nason video recorded it near Toronto; did anyone else observe, and hopefully time, it? Click here for moonviews and other prediction information about that event. We do have another interesting graze coming up, also early on a Sat. evening, the graze of 5.0-mag. 59 Leonis during the total lunar eclipse of March 3, visible near Wallops Island, VA; I hope that more observers might be able to share that interesting event than we had for delta Cap. Don't foreget the even rarer binoculars event for our area Thurs. night/Friday morning when the large asteroid 372 Palma will occult 6.3-mag. 32 Lyncis across most of Virginia, with possible occultations by satellites of Palma visible throughout our region - see my page about it in the January Stardust (publication of the National Capital Astronomers) and updated data and charts here - the medium-range weather forecast is for mostly clear skies that night, but cold and probably some wind - practice finding the target star beforehand if you can. Below is an account of our interesting expedition, and the friendly local residents we met, during Sat. evening's graze southeast of Tappahonnock, VA. ____________________________________________ Jeff Guerber was late joining our expedition in central Virginia, so I told him where to try to observe, at Ozeana beside US 17 where he could give a view over a large field; the Moon altitude was only 5 deg. for us, but the sky was very clear and the view good. By the time he started observing, the star had already disappeared, but he saw a "flash and a blink" as it reappeared. Unfortunately, it looks like he didn't have enough tape to record his visual observation, but he'll check it more carefully in a warm place later. Wayne Warren arrived earlier, but had trouble finding a suitable site. A farmer helped him find one, in the middle of his field. But by the time he got set up with video, it was close to the time of the graze and everything wasn't working, so he switched to visual at the last minute, missing the 1st D (like Jeff). With his small digital audio recorder, he timed 4 events. Afterwards, the farmer and his wife gave him a ham dinner and they talked for quite awhile; Wayne didn't leave until 10 pm, 3.5 hours after the graze. Wayne and Jeff covered the central part of the profile. I covered the two mountains at the southern (high) end of the profile. I set up a remote station with a 5-in. SCT near an abandoned (and half- collapsed) farm house, then set up an 8-in. SCT at another farm house (where an elderly woman lived). About 15 min. before the graze, after everything was set up at the 8-in. site, I drove to the 5-inch site, and saw that the star was still near the center of the video field of view (after having tracked for about 20 min., verifying that my rough polar alignment was alright) and turned on the Sharp camcorder recorder that recorded the observation there. Then, on the way back to the 8-inch, I stopped at another farm house (John Hundley's; he's the son of the woman who lived where the 8-in. was), quickly set up my Sony digital camcorder (which I had already attached to a small tripod and pre-focused manually), used its 24x optical zoom to zoom in on the Moon and saw the star, then zoomed out a little to give a wider field of view and set the Moon in the upper part of the field - this was near the road, just to the west of his driveway. Then I returned to the 8-in. and plugged the socket (that powered the Sony video Walkman to record the observation there) into my car outlet, and got that running a couple of minutes before the graze started. So I succeeded in video recording the graze from all 3 sites, each one recording 2 D's and 2 R's by the two highest mountains on the profile. After picking up everything, I went to John Hundley's house to let him know of my success. He said that he got out his 10 x 50 binoculars and watched it himself, and asked, how could the star disappear twice like that? So I showed him the moon view, the maps, and the predicted profile. As far as I remember, this is the first time that a resident actually observed a graze on their own (rather than just watch me, or my video, record it) - if I had known that he was going to try that, I would have loaned him a tape recorder to make independent timings, and set up the camcorder/tripod elsewhere! I told him that with his binoculars, he might also be able to observe the Palma asteroid occultation on Friday morning, so he said he'd look at my Web site and try to do that. David P.S. Harold Povenmire and a colleague observed the delta Cap graze near Elkin, NC, covering the northern part of the graze zone, according to plan, that we missed. David Dunham, 2007 Jan. 23, 1h UT home dunham@starpower.net 301-474-4722 cell 301-526-5590 office david.dunham@jhuapl.edu 240-228-5609