Good Lunar Pleiades Passage Sun. night Feb. 5/6, for western North America
Unfortunately, all efforts to observe the grazing occultations during the passage were clouded out, as far as I know now
Updated: 2006 February 7, 8 pm EST
So far, I've heard of no successful observations of any of Sunday night's (Feb. 5/6) Pleiades grazes. Jim Failes reports that five observers from the Okanagan, BC center of the RASC were in the graze zone but were clouded out. I met Mary Barnes east of Temecula, Calif.; conditions looked quite good before the graze, and we set up my three telescopes across the graze path. But the Moon sank into thicker clouds during the graze. The remote station with a 5" SCT at the center of the path faithfully recorded the graze until near the end when apparently a strong wind gust shook the telescope and dislodged the power cord to the telescope drive (I should have taped it in place), but the star was only marginally visible just before the graze. With considerable effort, stacking frames, it might be possible to recover some approximate event times, but I have several other much better unreduced tapes that I will work on first. Strong Santa Ana winds began blowing about half an hour before the graze, and afterwards dust filled the air, in places so thick that it was difficult to drive, like the ground fog that I drove through on the Garden Grove Freeway on the way back to my mother's place. We should have driven farther east on Hwy 79, which was in the path for about 20 miles to the east, but in hilly country where finding sites might have been difficult; when I considered it upon first arriving, looking at the sky then, it didn't look like there would be an advantage in doing that. But conditions at graze time did appear better farther east, so I hope that Harold Povenmire's effort near Yuma, AZ was successful. Ernie Iverson called me by cell phone about 20 minutes before the graze, saying the low clouds moved in over the Santiago Elementary School where he tried the graze, blotting out even the Moon. During my drive back from Temecuela, there were thicker clouds in the west as the Moon set, but no low clouds or fog, until just north of Chapman Ave. on Hwy. 55, very close to the northern limit of the Electra graze. ___________________________________________________________ Rick Vargo reports: I arrived at the Hewes-Bond site at 11pm. There was dense fog everywhere - only about 200' foot visibility (however WWV reception was good at 5 Mhz). Didn't see anybody set up on either Hewes or Bond, so I decided to head to a higher elevation to try to escape the fog. I drove east on Chapman, and very suddenly cleared the fog near Santiago Canyon College. I could see the moon pretty well through high cirrus clouds, and consulted the maps. I decided to head south on Jamboree Road to get back in the graze zone. Picked a site just about in the middle of the zone on Jamboree just east of Peters Canyon Reservoir - it was mostly clear overhead, but more clouds to the west where the moon was. I set up my 4" Maksutov, and could see Electra through the clouds pretty well up to about midnight. I started the recorder at 12:04, but had to use averted vision by then to see Electra due to the moon sinking into thicker clouds. My tape indicates I lost sight of the star at 12:07:05, but it was not a crisp event since I was using averted vision. I continued observing until 12:14 but never saw the star again. By then the moon was barely visible behind thicker clouds. Hope you had better success further east where the sky looked clearer. For extensive prediction information about the February 6th Pleiades passage, click here. David Dunham, IOTA home dunham@starpower.net 301-474-4722 cell 301-526-5590 office david.dunham@jhuapl.edu 240-228-5609