Occultation by (767) Bondia, 2006 August 14/15 - Updated Aug. 15. 16h UT

Miss observations recorded on south side of the path

No positives yet, but Kerry Coughlin and Roc Fleishman haven't reported yet from 25 km north in Baja

     Below are some first accounts of the appulse of the asteroid 
(767) Bondia with 11.0-mag. 2UCAC 21627363 near lambda Sagittarii 
last night.  Extensive prediction information is here.
_______________

From: David Dunham [dunham@starpower.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 11:12 AM
To: IOTAoccultations@yahoogroups.com
Cc: t.d.atwood@att.net; William.J.Cooke@nasa.gov; BajaKerry@gmail.com;
rocinbaja@yahoo.com; Dunham, David
Subject: Re: [IOTAoccultations] 767 Bondia

Richard,

    Thanks for this.  Bill Cooke recorded the star at Marshall Space 
Flight Center, and also had a miss; that was at about 70 km south, 
so we know that the path didn't shift south.  We'll be anxious to 
hear how Roc and Kerry did at 25 km north in Baja.  I observed from 
a site beside Cherrytown Rd. a mile east of Silver Run, MD (on MD 
Route 97 north of Westminster) at 16 km south.  Although I saw the 
target star in the video a minute before the occultation, and quite 
well a minute afterward, during the critical minute the cirrus 
thickened enough that I couldn't see stars fainter than 10th mag.  
Depending on what happened farther north, I could probably try to 
stack frames to get a lower-resolution timing of any occultation 
that may have occurred at my site.  At least I had the clock drive 
running.  Four to three hours before the occultation, the weather 
situation looked quite hopeless in Maryland so I didn't try to set 
up any remote stations.  Two hours before the event, the IR weather 
satellite image showed a small thinning of the cirrus tracking along 
the Mason-Dixon line, so I headed for it. 

    Terry Atwood obtained a recording at his home in Shreveport, LA 
at 3 km north, but like my video, it wasn't sensitive enough to show 
the target star, but probably would with frame stacking.  Again, 
we'll wait for word from Baja about whether or not we should try to 
process that video.  Others I've heard from so far said it was too 
cloudy to observe from their location. 

David

At 10:17 AM 8/15/2006, you wrote:

>I had a miss from 32 km south of the predicted center (just north of 
>Centerville, Texas)
>
>Lat = 31d 18m 36sec
>Long = 95d 59m 25 sec
>Elev= 90m
>
>Richard Nugent
>Houston, Texas
_____________________________________

David Dunham, 2006 August 15, noon EDT
Phones home 301-474-4722; office 240-228-5609; car 301-526-5590
emails dunham@starpower.net or office david.dunham@jhuapl.edu