Dedication and organization for the Tercidina Occultation
in Eastern Europe
New: 2002 September 20
From: David Dunham [dunham@erols.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 2:05 AM
Subject: [PLANOCCULT] Tercidina east - dedication in
Slovakia, organization in Russia
The Tercidina occultation of 43 Tauri Monday night is
starting to rival the occultation of 14 Piscium by
Nemausa in Sept. 1983 for the 2nd-best-observed asteroidal
occultation so far, so only the 130 stations for the Pallas
occultation of 1 Vulpeculae in May 1983 may be better
observed. Several observers crossed national borders to
observe this great event. We hope we can do at least half
as well when we get our turn in North America for the
bright star occultations by asteroids on Nov. 3 and 10
(and maybe Oct. 16, but that's a small asteroid for which
we have no good astrometry so far). Below are two
interesting Tercidina accounts from eastern Europe:
___________________________________________
I wrote to
To: 'Leszek Benedyktowicz'
Subject: RE: Obs
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 12:18:12 -0400
Leszek,
Thanks for this. Pavlol is a very dedicated observer,
we should all take inspiration from his success!
David
-----Original Message-----
From: Leszek Benedyktowicz [mailto:lechben@go2.pl]
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 5:51 AM
To: Dunham, David; Jan Manek
Subject: Obs
Manager observatory Rimavska Pavlol Rapavy was in hospital.
Several days before occultation he broke leg.
Pavlol observed on terrace in hospital and registered occurrence.
Leszek
___________________________________________
- and from Russia with love (of bright asteroidal occultations);
great organization, too bad it was cloudy.
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 00:14:37 +0400
From: "Denis V. Denissenko"
Organization: Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Subject: 345 Tercidina clouded out in Elista (long)
Hello!
I've finally returned home from Elista (Kalmykia) after what was
meant to be observations of omega 1 Tauri occultation by (345)
Tercidina. We've had extremely bad luck on Tuesday morning - after
several hours of clear night skies clouds rolled in from the west
just 1.5 hours before the event. To make things yet worse, heavy low
fog materialized all over the plains. This is especially pity after
all the preparation work done with a great help from people at the
local University and lyceum. As I already told Raymond, two weeks
ago I wrote to Kalmykian Minister of Science and Education Alexander
Solovjev who is astronomer himself. I asked him to distribute the
information on the ongoing event among local astronomy teachers and
University students. Instead he invited me to come to Elista for
observations and offered to cover my travel expenses which was
absolutely unexpected for me!
He had also invited Eugene Trunkovsky from Sternberg Astronomy
Institute (SAI) at Moscow State University, but Trunkovsky had other
obligations. However, he has found a replacement at SAI - younger
scientist Nikolay Shatsky who turned out to be very mobile,
professional and inventive. (He was told Friday night that he should
leave for Elista on Sunday morning, and he did so!)
Another excuse why we were called to Elista was to help people at
lyceum in assembling and setting up Meade LX50 10" telescope with
CCD Pictor 216XT. It was bought for University from the money
donated by Kalmykian president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who is also
heading International Chess Federation (FId'E). There will be
presidential elections in Kalmykia in October, so this event should
have served as a kind of PR action showing that president supports
science and education in this small republic with a population of
330,000.
What made us absolutely surprised was not the possible "political"
aspect of the event (it was advertised by me in the media, including
popular internet sites and Computerra weekly magazine with
circulation of 134,500) but the enthusiasm of the people who have
little or none relation to astronomy at all. We were joined by the
head of physics department with two postgrads, lyceum computer
teacher and even construction workers. What was most valuable,
University provided 3 cars for mobile stations. The day before the
occultation we took a trip to these locations 10 and 25 km south
from Elista (it was just inside the northern path limit according to
Jan Manek's updates). Two points were selected whose coordinates
were to be determined later by GPS (we didn't have one with us).
On Monday we also unpacked and assembled 10" Meade LX50, Pictor and
a computer (it was Pentium 4 at 1.8 GHz!) Local amateur astronomer
(the only one from Elista I found on the Net) got CCD to work with
latest version of PictorView software. It was tested on stars, Later
on Monday three 110mm Newtonian reflectors TAL-2M were provided by
University. We brought from Moscow three Conus chronometers with 10
memories and 0.01 sec resolution, more stopwatches were available
locally. I also printed out a dozen finder charts and a few
stopwatches manuals. We also made copies of the detailed observer's
manual we wrote down in the plane.
Evening was devoted to a short lecture on goals of the observation
and training. About 20 people, 3 cars, 5 scopes, monocular,
spyglass, 2 videocameras, tripod and radio were present. After
setting up the groups everybody was learning how to find the star
through the scope in the field. Then we started stopwatches and
tested several times everybody's reaction to time signals (Conus has
countdown with 5 second beeps). When we assured the 0.2 sec accuracy
we made the main test. Timers were simultatneously launched at 1:00
and Nickolay switched on the red LED from reticle eyepiece. After
approximately 3 minutes he turned it off for 7 seconds using his
clock (the moment and duration was not known to anybody) and 5
people timed the "event" with their stopwatches. Comparing the
results showed less than 0.2 sec difference for all five observers!
Sky was perfectly clear till three o'clock (less than 2 hours before
the event). And then Mr. Murphy took over - see the first paragraph
above... All three stations were set up and ready to observe, but
not even Saturn or Capella were seen. We waited till 4:55 and
returned to the base. Everybody agreed that was unfair and we were
deserving a success - but alas. The first ever observation of naked
eye star occultation by asteroid in Russia failed despite all the
preparations. But the most incredible thing was that all people
present have enjoyed the night. We experienced an incredible feeling
of cooperation which is so rare. So many people were doing the
common job together and even the failure didn't spoil that
atmosphere. We had the farewell dinner on Tuesday evening (great
Kalmykian hospitality!) and everybody was delighted by what we have
seen and done. We exchanged presents with the Minister, earlier in
the day we also visited the University labs, computer center and
library. It was amazing for us to see that science and education are
growing in a small town almost 1.5 thousand km away from Moscow!
All in all, it was not just game of chances but an incredible
experience full of events. Weather was changing every few hours:
+26C upon arrival on Sunday, stormy rain with falling ice in a few
hours, then clear skies by 1 a.m., then cloudy morning and bright
warm day followed by complete overcast on Monday evening, clear
night skies when everybody had a chance to watch the Moon and Saturn
through the new telescope. Many people have never touched anything
like that. There was an amateur astronomer from a little town who
build a 110mm telescope on his own - one should have seen his eyes!
He doesn't have internet access, astronomy literature, magazines or
almanach. I have given him a list of events for 2003 together with
the map. He learned a lot of new things about telescopes, asteroids,
what people in the world are doing. I'm sure we will remember these
two nights and two days for a long time! And, of course, keep on
hunting for asteroidal occultations!
Denis
PS I had over 250 visits to my page with the prediction. So far I
got 4 reports from Russia and Crimea - all rain and clouds. Someone
was observing several hundred kilometers to the west from us - skies
cleared up there one hour after the occultation...
PPS There will be another occultation of 9.2m star by Tercidina on
October 31st. I think after Sep. 17th event Tercidina's orbit will
be improved greatly and we can have the prediction with an error of
0.2-0.3 path widths. I wonder if the path will go through Sankt-
Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Crimea or Bakirlitepe in Turkey?