Occultations and Grazes during the October 27th/28th Total Lunar Eclipse - new 2004 October 13
Lunar Meteor Impacts might also be recorded
Occultations (total and grazing) of many stars will occur during the total lunar eclipse of October 27/28 (28th UT; evening of Oct. 27 in the Americas) for observers in most of the Western Hemisphere, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Eberhard Riedel's map shows the paths of all grazing occultations of stars brighter than mag. 10.1 that will occur against the umbra during the partial or total phases of the eclipse. Numbers at the ends of the path identify the grazing occultations that are listed here. Detailed predictions for individual paths might be obtained from Eberhard Riedel at E_Riedel@msn.com or, for events in the Americas, from an IOTA grazing occultation coordinator (contact David Dunham at dunham@starpower.net ), or compute your own predictions using David Herald's WinOccult program available from IOTA's Web site. The eclipse also provides an opportunity to record lunar meteor impact flashes during totality, and possibly for several minutes before and after; try to video record as much of the Moon's disk that is in the umbra as possible. If you have a relatively narrow field of view, image the darkest part of the umbra. Some more information about occultations during the eclipse is in an Occultation Newsletter article here. Walter Morgan has planned an expedition for a grazing occultation of 8.9-mag. SAO 92827 in the Sacramento Valley, but it will be difficult due to the low altitude. Details are here.