The IOTA Manual

Chasing the Shadow: The IOTA Occultation Observer's Manual

The Observing Manual of the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA)

Edited by Richard Nugent, Houston, Texas, USA, Executive Secretary of IOTA, e-mail rnugent@wt.net

Updated: 2007 April 19

The IOTA manual is now maintained by Richard Nugent and Derek Breit 
on Derek Breit's IOTA manual Web site; you should consult it for the 
latest version.  

Unfortunately, the grazing occultation section of the Nugent/Breit 
version of the IOTA manual does not describe the ACLPPP predicted 
lunar limb profiles, which are significantly more accurate than the 
Grazereg profiles described, even though Grazereg does use some of 
the ACLPPP data.  For an example of an ACLPPP profile and how to use 
it, see my grazing occultation Web pages. 
The IOTA manual does describe using the profiles generated by David 
Herald's WinOccult program that many observers are using now, and 
those profiles seem to be as accurate as the ACLPPP profiles.

Not included yet in the manual is the observation of lunar meteor 
impacts; like occultations, these are very transient astronomical 
phenomena that can be video recorded, so they are of interest to 
many IOTA observers.  Much information about them can be found here, 
including in the 3rd item a link to Brian Cudnik's even more 
extensive and more up-to-date information in the 3rd item.