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Occultation of Regulus 2014


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On March 20th 2014 at 6:07 UT Regulus will be occulted by an asteroid, an extremely rare event, viewable from NE United States and Canada, for those in the centre of the path, the star will remain invisible for around 12 seconds.

Unfortunately for those of us in the UK, if I've worked it out correctly on Stellarium, the event will be out of sight just below the horizon and the sky would probably be too bright anyway.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nearly time for the event. I wish I could be there! Apparently the weather doesn't look too good at the moment, but you never know. 

There will possibly be some live feeds to watch but I might wait until I see the `highlights`.

There is a facebook page and a website for the event here which gives all the information anyone might ever need.  http://occultations.org/regulus2014/

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What a cosmic joke, such an event and no spectators :(

Update 21 March:  Weather across New York State appears to have foiled all attempts to observe the occultation in or near the path, with the possible exception of an observing team that went to Bermuda on Wednesday.  Talk about bad luck – a whole week of beautiful clear skies, and then one cloudy night at just the wrong time.  Oh well, doing real science is like that – you do your best and take what comes. 

Overcast skies with a mix of rain or snow are predicted along virtually the entire track from the tiny berg of Cochrane in northern Ontario south through New York City, Connecticut and New Jersey. A sluggish cold front isn’t expected to clear skies until … no surprise here … after the event is over.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/110451/clouds-may-scotch-tomorrows-rare-erigone-regulus-occultation/#ixzz2wWEJgP5p

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Yep, that is unbelievable that no one was able to see it. Here is an update from the Regulus Occultation 2014 facebook page, a real shame for such a special event:-

Sadly, as of 4pm today, March 20th, there are no confirmed observations from this morning's occultation of Regulus from anywhere, including Bermuda where several IOTA members travelled in an attempt to beat the clouds and rain that blanketed the entire occultation path. From most places even the full Moon was invisible behind thick clouds that rolled overhead in a continuous layer that never seemed to end. 
SLOOH did a fine job broadcasting images of the asteroid approaching the star, taken from their observatory in the Canary Islands. Of course this was far outside the predicted path of the occultation visibility.
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It`s not all doom and gloom for us shadows chasers, we have the next naked eye star occultation to look forward to!

 319 Leona will occult Betelgeuse on  2023 December 12th. Which is a Tuesday I believe. Prediction is attached.

To look on the positive side of the clouded out Regulus occultation, much progress has been reported in gaining public and media interest in 

this rare astronomical event and even an iphone app has been created to enable people to produce useful timings of the event, had they been able to observe it. Dont forget there are plenty of binocular and telescopic asteroid occultations occurring,

some suitable for Europe are posted here http://call4obs.iota-es.de/

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It`s not all doom and gloom for us shadows chasers, we have the next naked eye star occultation to look forward to!

319 Leona will occult Betelgeuse on 2023 December 12th. Which is a Tuesday I believe. Prediction is attached.

To look on the positive side of the clouded out Regulus occultation, much progress has been reported in gaining public and media interest in

this rare astronomical event and even an iphone app has been created to enable people to produce useful timings of the event, had they been able to observe it. Dont forget there are plenty of binocular and telescopic asteroid occultations occurring,

some suitable for Europe are posted here http://call4obs.iota-es.de/

That Betelgeuse occultation would be worth seeing. What a shame that in Europe the 68km-wide path of the occultation is almost entirely in the uninhabited Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps a visit to Gib or Sicily is called for!
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