First Results from the March 16 (UT) 663 Gerlinde Occultation

New: 2003 March 17

Curt Roelle videorecorded a 12.6-second occultation with his
12" at Marston Observatory, Maryland, at track 58S (58 km
southeast of Preston's updated center).  Since Roelle had nearly
a central occultation (judging from the near-max. duration),
the path must have shifted about half a path-width to the
south, or maybe a little more.  That means that the
southern limit must have been approximately over 
Washington, DC and Philadelphia, PA; certainly Baltimore, APL,
and much of central Maryland had an occultation.  
Roelle's observation is confirmed by miss observations from:

67N Morgantown, WV  Brian at Tomchin Observatory
61N Shreveport, LA  Terry Atwood
50N near Acton, MA  Mike Mattei
45N n.w. of Breezewood, PA  Alin Tolea
31N Sudbury, MA   Dennis di Cicco
 6N Glastonbury, CT  Phil Dombrowski

Also, Bob Anderson timed the occultation visually from near
Greenbank, WV, obtaining a chord that was unfortunately less 
than 3 km from Curt Roelle's chord.

I ran a remote station at Boonsboro, MD at 35S, and as far
as I could tell, it worked, but I won't review the long tape
probably until this evening.  Finding the guide star north of
Mintaka was a LOT easier than finding the target star
directly, and I failed to do that, with finder inadequate
with the moonlight, at my attended site east of Williamsport,
MD.  Several others were trying it on the south side, and
I hope they had some success, too.  The IR satellite image
showed it clear from northern Virginia almost to Boston,
and also clear from central Tennessee and northern
Alabama to northern Mississippi, thin clouds (through which
Atwood observed) over northern Louisiana, then cloudy
across most of Texas, but it looked like a clear hole
from approximately San Antonio to Reynosa.  It looked
like it was clear, or mostly so, northwest of Monterrey,
Mexico, but actually the mobile observers from Monterrey
were all clouded out.