Occultation by the large asteroid (704) Interamnia observed from 7 stations, in New Mex., Iowa, and Mich. - New 2007 Sept. 10, 23h UT
Below is a summary of the seven positive observations of this morning's occultation by Interamnia that I know about so far; no negative (monitored star & had no event) observations have been reported yet. Pre-event predictions and plans are here. Occultation of TYC 2410-00061-1 by 704 Interamnia on 2007 Sep 09 [Prediction of 2007 Aug 14.0] Dist. from center Observer, Location, Method, duration (if provided) km 164 *** Predicted Northern limit *** 65 David Dunham, n. of Dubuque, IA, C8, intensified video 48 Bob Cadmus, Grinnell, IA, photoelectric, 15.94s 42 John Centala, Marion, IA, visual, 17.2s 24 Doug Slauson, Swisher, IA, seen, but no useable WWV, not recorded 0 **** Centre Line **** -3 Wayne Osborn, Mt Plesant, MI CMU Obs., R only timed, CCD drift scan -53 Maley & Ramotowski, Bernalillo NM, C8, intensified video, 13-14s -90 Kevin McKeown, Los Lunas old dump, visual, 9.5s -164 *** Predicted Southern limit *** The observations will give a result, but not as good as the 2003 or even 1996 events becuase a little less than half the diameter of the asteroid was covered. I had hoped to use I-39 in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin to deploy my stations, but when I arrived there about 11 pm CDT, a fair amount of cloudiness was still evident to the north, and the Astro Meteo forecast had indicated that I-39 would be close to the edge of the heavy cloud cover to the east (it was very cloudy when my flight arrived in Chicago, and during most of the drive to I-39). So I decided instead to deploy farther west, taking over an hour more time to get to my southern site, and then not leaving more time to go farther north, which I wanted to do since as far as I knew, nobody was going to try it north of Guy Nason's attempt at +51 (the satellite IR images show that he was clouded out, he confirmed that). If I had used I-39 (and I-90 north of Rockford, IL), I would have gone much farther north in the path in Wisconsin, possibly as far north as +130, with maybe another remote station as well. The remote station that I did run at -140 near Brimfield, IL probably failed; I'm having trouble recovering the video from the compact flash card, and the unit was dead when I arrived back there after the event, having depleted the battery. Judging from McKeown's relatively short event compared to the longer ones farther north, I suspect that there was some north shift of the path. Many thanks to all who tried to observe this occultation. David