Only miss observations made of Aug. 8th 447 Valentine occultation
New: August 13 at 19h UTSo far, still only miss observations have been reported, from the locations given below (those with * in Col. C). Dist. U.T. W.Long. Lat. h City/ Country Observer or km C h m o o m Town Observatory 108N -- northern limit with very possible 1-sigma north shift 44N * 7 27.5 76.623 39.332 140 Baltimore, MD JHU Bloomberg Obs.24in. 43N --7 27.2 77.000 39.532 *** Northern Limit *** Preston point 36N * 7 27.1 77.081 39.505 235 Marston, MD M.Ob,C.Roelle,12" 21N * 7 27.5 76.674 39.102 43 New Cut Rd, MD Joe Sedlak, 11cm refl. 21N * Richmond Hgts., OH Bob Modic 5N * Goddard Opt. Site Wayne H. Warren, Jr. 28S * 7 27.5 76.834 38.658 0 Dent&BOakRds, MD CedarvStPk,D.Dunham 43S -- *** predicted southern limit *** 49S * 7 21.9 85.351 42.915 262 Lowell, Michigan Optec Obs., 10in. 57S * 7 24.3 81.407 40.883 342 N. Canton, OH Dick Emmons 90S * 7 12.2 113.400 51.215 970 n.of Calgary, AB Gary Billings 108S -- southern limit with very possible 1-sigma south shift 176S * 7 18.2 92.924 44.829 0 AFTON MN JAMES H. FOX 192S -- southern limit with possible 2-sigma south shift With the rather extensive coverage on the south side of the path, I think it's more likely that the actual shadow passed at least 1 path-width north of Steve Preston's prediction, with Alin Tolea's observation only 1 km north of the northern limit being the northernmost observation so far. Especially more observations farther north are sought. I'm copying this to Ron Stone to see if he might obtain a few FASTT observations after the fact; that should allow us to "post-dict" the path fairly accurately, and maybe get some idea of specifically why the prediction was this far in error. Many thanks to all of those who monitored, or tried to monitor, the star around the predicted time. The event occurred near a stationary point in RA (much slower than usual motion), where I have found astrometric errors to be larger than usual for past events, and also no accurate observations of the asteroid were made after 2001 Sept. 1, contributing to the current inaccuracy. David Dunham, 2002 Aug. 9, 3h UT