Grazing Occultation in DC region March 2/3, 2006
Last-minute clouds probably ruined it
Updated: 2006 March 3, 11 pm EST
No, Astro Meteo wasn't right, probably. I don't know for sure because my son received his awards 10 minutes and 1 minute before the start of the graze observing period, so there was no way I could leave to try to observe it even from the parking lot. A little more than an hour after the graze, the ceremony was over and I went outside to see a mostly cloudy sky. The IR satellite image at the time of the graze here shows clouds moving in from the west over Washington. Although it may have been clear at the time overhead as seen from Bowie, with the low altitude of the graze in the west, the Moon probably would have been in the approaching clouds even there at graze time. Below is the part of yesterday's pre-event message about the graze. ___________________________ Astro Meteo was right, it DID clear up and looks good for tonight's graze. You need to find a location with a good western horizon since the altitude will be 10 deg. high in the west. For the Washington, DC region, observe from 8:33 pm EST (1:33 UT) to 8:38 pm EST. At about 8:36 pm, the star will reach sunlit features at the cusp and will be harder to see after that, but there may be shaded valleys in which it will reappear then, since the Moon is only 12% sunlit. This is a southern limit, so watch the southern cusp, with the star approaching from the dark side. Couldn't get things debugged for a Web plot in time, so I did it the old-fashioned manual way and scanned the maps into two .jpg files: West of DC, Great Falls, VA to Chevy Chase, MD. East of DC, Silver Spring to Bowie, MD. Both maps are in a possibly easier for you to display and print Word file here. Good luck with your observations! In an e-mail message earlier today, I wrote: I'll be at a high school swimmers awards ceremony for my son, William (he came in 5th in the 200-yard freestyle in the Maryland State public high school meet, pretty good for a freshman) in central Bowie so I won't be able to lead any effort to observe the graze myself (the path will be just a few miles south of the school where the ceremonies will be held), but others in or near the path may want to try it. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll try to get you some path information. _______________________________________________________________ Grazing Occultations DATE Day EST Star Mag % alt CA Location Mar 2 Thu 20:35 ZC 209 7.2 12+ 10 1S SterlngVA;Bethsda,Woodmore,MD _____________________________________ David Dunham, 2006 March 2 phones home 301-474-4722; office 240-228-5609; cell 301-526-5590 (use before this graze) office e-mail david.dunham@jhuapl.edu home e-mail dunham@starpower.net BUT I won't be reachable by e-mail from the time this is posted until after the graze