Interamnia Occultation Mar. 23 timed in Hawaii & Japan
Updated: 2003 July 7The 2003 March 23rd occultation is the best-observed one involving (704) Interamnia, but it's not the first! Click here for more information about these previous events, especially the rather well-observed one in the s.w. USA on 1996 Dec. 17. I believe that the March 23rd occultation now edges out the 1983 Sept. 11 occultation of 14 Piscium by (51) Nemausa as the 3rd best-observed asteroidal occultation. Below is a quick reply to Jim Bedient giving him (and now you) an expanded account of the successful observations of the Saturday March 23rd occultation of SAO 96908 by (704) Interamnia. The link below shows the outline of Interamnia determined from several of the Japanese observations, and a map of central Japan locating the observers and the actual path there (the map there does not show the Maui observers like Hirose's map below). http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~set/Unlink/704.html but the best outline, including a good solution for the separation and position angle of SAO 96908's duplicity found during the occultation, has recently been calculated by David Herald. Another outline by Paul Maley, with links to the data using 22 of the Japanese observations, 10 from the Island of Hawaii, and 5 from Maui and Oahu can be found in his report of the event here. Another plot of 19 positive and several negative Japanese observations is here with a Word version of it here. Here is a report of the observations by Becky Sydney and me on Maui. Maps show the locations of the observers in Japan and in Hawaii obtained from Toshio Hirose's Web site. From: David Dunham [dunham@erols.com] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 10:25 PM To: James Bedient Cc: tholen@IfA.Hawaii.Edu; david.dunham@jhuapl.edu; jan.manek@worldonline.cz Subject: Re: Interamnia Jim, Thanks for your message; glad you had some success with Interamnia on Oahu and look forward to your results. We made good video observations from sites just a few miles inside both ends of Maui, and Haleakala was successful, as well as one other observatory in Kihei, which however might have too poor time resolution. Our weather was quite good along the western side of Maui. At least 9 chords were obtained well-spaced across the Big Island, and at least 19 in Japan, including some both north and south of what we could cover in Hawaii, were also successful. Negative observations near Sendai, Japan and a short chord observed 115 km n. of Steve Preston's central line shows that the path shifted south about 50 km from Steve's prediction, and an approximately similar amount north of Isao Sato's prediction. Observations were made near the northern tip of Oahu and the southern tip of Hawaii, showing that all the major Hawaiian islands were within the path. Isao Sato says that the Japanese observations show that the star has a 9th-mag. companion about 0.016" from the primary star. David At 11:33 AM 3/23/2003 -1000, you wrote: >Dear David, > >We had a successful night on Oahu with the occultation last night - I'll get >good times off the video and send them to you some time in the next week or >so. The seeing was absolutely horrible, as you can see by the preliminary >photoelectric curve attached. How'd you make out on Maui? > >Jim Bedient >Honolulu, HI Prediction information about the occultation is here. David Dunham