Asteroid 2589 Daniel to occult Regulus March 9th

[Astrobits]

Although this should be in the observations section I thought that it warranted a more prominent post here. Moderators move if you think necessary.

As title, Regulus will be occulted by asteroid 2589 Daniel on March 9th at approx 20h 21m . The narrow shadow will pass through southern England from Minehead to Worthing. The image below shows the centre line with the predicted limit in blue with the 1 sigma error lines also shown. The asteroid is quire small at only approx 9.5Km wide so the occultation will last less than 1 second. At least this one can be done without optical aid.

Good luck and hope the weather plays ball.

Nigel

 

[happy-kat]

Thanks for the heads up that is placed nicely for me

[happy-kat]

The sky looks to be clear Tuesday as well, going to try a dry run tonight setting the camera up.

Just reading the links to see what time likely for my location.

Edited March 6, 2021 by happy-kat

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Weather permitting the line almost goes over my house! @happy-kat where have you got the timing data from?  I can't see any links.

[happy-kat]

https://www.asteroidoccultation.com/2021_03/0309_2589_74114_Summary.txt

I found this site to use

EDIT: good job I tried a dry run, missed the target!

Edited March 7, 2021 by happy-kat

[Astrobits]

I use both this one :

https://www.asteroidoccultation.com/

and this one:

http://www.poyntsource.com/New/Global.htm

happy-kat link takes you to the specific page in the first link for this event.

The second web site tends to follow the first by a day or so.

Nigel

Edited March 7, 2021 by Astrobits

[John]

8 hours ago, Astrobits said:

I use both this one :

https://www.asteroidoccultation.com/

and this one:

http://www.poyntsource.com/New/Global.htm

happy-kat link takes you to the specific page in the first link for this event.

The second web site tends to follow the first by a day or so.

Nigel

Looks like you have a 31% chance of visibility where you are Nigel.

Probably around 1% up here in Portishead

Edited March 7, 2021 by John

[Astrobits]

Looking at the cloud forecast there is 0% chance of seeing it☹️

Nigel

 

[happy-kat]

Forecast not looking good but dashed to take a test shot at 8:20 ish to check was Regulus in frame, there's enough FOV to cover 15 minutes or so either side.

 

[happy-kat]

Looking at sat24 there was a lot of cloud about, perhaps somewhere it was clear for some observers.

The camera was left running for an hour maybe got lucky maybe not, I'll check the images tomorrow.

[Phil Fargaze]

The event was negative for me from east of London. My predicted time was 20h 20m 58s with a tolerance of +- 2 seconds.  I had high level cloud but the camera could still manage a decent view of Regulus. I`m aware of at least 20 other potential observers across Europe so if a positive result turns up I will post it on here.

[happy-kat]

Looks like I've got a lot of thin cloud images but I've yet check them all manually to see if the asteroid is there as regulus is.

[Astrobits]

23 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Looks like I've got a lot of thin cloud images but I've yet check them all manually to see if the asteroid is there as regulus is.

The asteroid was at mag 16.9. You are unlikely to see it, especially through cloud.

I had solid cloud.☹️

Nigel

 

[John]

37 minutes ago, Astrobits said:

The asteroid was at mag 16.9. You are unlikely to see it, especially through cloud.

I had solid cloud.☹️

Nigel

 

So did I

[happy-kat]

With the thin cloud I didn't pick up anything past magnitude 10.05... oh well tried.

[John]

4 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

With the thin cloud I didn't pick up anything past magnitude 10.05... oh well tried.

The star Regulus is bright - magnitude 1.4. The occultation by the much fainter asteroid would have caused a dip in the brightness of Regulus for a brief moment (less than a second).

 

[happy-kat]

I had hoped to have picked it up moving between frames even if not the actual blink, but alas not to be.