Occ'n of 9.5-mag. SAO 76774 by 1707 Chantal, e. USA, 2006 Jan. 12/13
Thirteen observers monitored the star, all but one reporting that no occultation occurred
The one possible positive observation is an uncertain visual one that implies a large path shift to the northwest so that it may have been over the Shenandoah Valley
New: 2006 January 16
Occultation of SAO 76774 by 1707 Chantal on 2006 Jan 13 Distance from center of S. Preston's predicted occultation path - in km Dist Location Longitude Latitude U.T. km o ' o ' h m 94 ** Northern limit plus 2-sigma ** 79 Bloomsburg PA Michael Shepard -076 25.7 41 01.2 1 22.4 50 ** Northern limit plus 1-sigma ** 37 WarnerRobinsGA K9 Obs G.Lilley - 83 40.4 32 37.4 1 30.4 22 Jim Thorpe PA Tom Bash - 75 41.3 40 54.8 1 22.2 5 -- Northern limit -- -1 Dayton MD Gary Frishkorn - 76 59.6 39 13.9 1 23.7 -3 se Dayton MD D. Dunham mobile -076 58.5 39 13.2 1 23.7 -5 -- Southern limit -- -9 CentennielParkMD JSedlak mobile -076 52.0 39 14.6 1 23.7 -10 Bethesda MD John Wetmore - 77 6.5 38 58.7 1 23.9 -15 Narvon PA Dick Sauder - 75 56.3 40 6.4 1 22.8 -26 Alexandria VA Elizabeth Warner -077 02.5 38 48.8 1 24.0 -27 GORF16IN MD Wayne H. Warren Jr. - 76 49.6 39 1.3 1 23.8 -31 Essex MD Dale Lehman - 76 28.2 39 19.2 1 23.5 -48 WChester PA CLIFFORD J. BADER - 75 34.4 39 58.6 1 22.8 -50 ** Southern limit plus 1-sigma ** -64 Garrison NY Frank Suits - 73 55.0 41 23.1 1 21.3 -94 ** Southern limit plus 2-sigma ** There is very good coverage of the path and the uncertainty zone on the southeast side, from -1 to -31 km from the predicted central line. Unfortunately, not knowing exactly where observations were going to be made, it was hard to target mobile observers, and some close duplications occurred in spite of efforts to prevent them. I knew coverage on the near north side would probably be light, and I tried to go there from my office in n.w. Laurel, MD. I could not leave my office until later than I'd hoped, and headed northwest on MD Route 32, the best way to get towards the n.w. But at Route 108 in Clarksville, I ran into a massive traffic jam, caused I found out later by the head-on collision of two pickup trucks that killed 2 and hospitalized 5 people. So I got off at Clarksville and tried to find a site off of Ten Oaks Rd. to set up a remote station, and then would head as far west as I could for another observation. It was a residential area, so I obtained permission to set up at a house, only to be asked to leave 30 minutes later when some of the residents became a little nervous about my setup (maybe I should have set up a smaller scope there?). Then there was time left to only set up one station, and I ran into another traffic jam on Ten Oaks Road farther west from traffic coming from blocked Route 32. So there was no way I could get northwest of the central line and found a nearby microwave tower where nobody bothered me for the observation. The higher elevation there turned out to help since when I left, ground fog was in lower areas; some observers reported haze that, with the moonlight, caused some difficulties in finding or visually monitoring the target star. With the north shifts for TYC stars that we've had recently, it's very possible that the path passed between Frishkorn at -1 and Bash at +22 - that's a gap of over 2 path-widths. But the path possibly went farther northwest as indicated by Michael Shepard's observation given below, that's quite possible, we've had north shifts of more than 1 sigma for a couple of other events in recent months, and the time difference for Michael's event, 0.2 min. early, is well within the unusually large (due to the slow motion) time uncertainty for this event of 20 seconds. So there's a good chance that Michael's event was real; if so, the actual path passed over Hagerstown, MD and down the Shenandoah Valley to approximately Roanoke. So far, I haven't heard from any observers in that area, only from the ones listed above. _________________ Message from Michael Shepard: David, Did you get any hits? I observed from Bloomsburg, PA N 41 01' 14" W 76 25' 40", 700' elevation. I did not observe an event at the predicted time (1 22.4 UTC). However, I *might* have observed an event at 01:22:10 UTC. I did not record with a video recorder so I don't have a visual record. But I may have observed a very brief (~1-2 sec) event at that time. I had high clouds, so it may have been a brief cloud cover. Mike _________________ Click here for path maps, star charts, and much other pre-occultation prediction information. David Dunham, IOTA home dunham@starpower.net 301-474-4722 cell 301-526-5590 office david.dunham@jhuapl.edu 240-228-5609