Occultation by Pluto 2006 June 12 recorded in s.e. Australia
Updated: 2006 June 16
Dr. Wolfgang Beisker, IOTA/European Section, reports from Tasmania: From: Beisker, Wolfgang, Dr. [beisker@gsf.de] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:00 AM Subject: Tasmania: Pluto occultation observed Dear all A successful observation of the PLUTO occultation has to be reported from Canopus Hill Observatory in Tasmania After days of hazzle and many problems occultation data with a rate of 1.6 seconds per image could be taken. No data reduction has been performed up to now. both telescopes, a C14 and a 16 inch Newtonian coupled to an IOTA Occultation Camera have successfully worked. A lot of problems arose from telescope and weather problems. Furthermore, an US Group at the 1m instrument (Steve Souza) acquired data too successfully. >From Mt John nothing is reported. From a phonecall I know, that severe weather conditions with snow up to 20 inch prevented any operation and cut off Mt. John in NZ from any communication. Therefore it is to be assumed, that no data could be taken at Mt. John, NZ. That's it for tonight >From Tasmania with best regards to all friends in the community Wolfgang Beisker, IOTA/ES ___________ Dave Gault also observed the occultation from New South Wales; his reports here and here give details. ___________ Finally, Jean Lecacheux reports the attempt to observe the occultation by the P2 satellite from Reunion: From: PLANOCCULT-owner@AULA.COM on behalf of jlx@meteores.net Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:26 PM To: planoccult@AULA.COM; sicardy@despace.obspm.fr Subject: [PLANOCCULT] Occn. by "P2" (sat. of Pluto) clouded out at La Reunion island. >From J.Lecacheux and F.Colas. We attempted the observation from two sites which should yield a 14 km separation of chords (in the Bessel plane) : at Les Makes Observatory, alt. 1000 m, with a fixed Celestron 14, and at Le Maido, a road termination and belvedere at alt. 2200 m, with a mobile Meade 12". We used intensified video cameras whose limit of sensitivity is better by 2.0 mag. than our reference camera, the Watec 902H. Alas after some rain during the whole afternoon, the fine weather of all the preceding days was coming back too slowly. No useful record could be made. ___________ Pre-occultation plans and predictions are here. ______________________ David Dunham, IOTA e-mail: home, dunham@starpower.net office, david.dunham@jhuapl.edu phones cell 301-526-5590; office 240-228-5609; home 301-474-4722