Asteroid Marianna occultation video, 19th Jan 2024

[lukebl]

Here's a singularly unimpressive video!

Actually, I like it. It's a capture I did last night of the occultation (lasting 4.1 seconds) of an 11.7 magnitude star (TYC 1183-00432-1) by the 123km-wide asteroid (602) Marianna. Marianna is 13.6 magnitude and you can just make it out during the occultation. The asteroids fascinate me, and I find the sight of a distant small object passing in front a vastly more distant star in real time literally awesome!  The star is the one just below the centre.

This was captured with a WATEC-910 video cam on my 250mm f/4.8, with a shutter speed of 0.08 seconds.

Edited January 21 by lukebl

[Phil Fargaze]

Nice capture. Always awesome to see a star blink out behind an asteroid. I got a miss from just south of the shadow path. It`s been a busy week for occultations!

[Paul M]

That's really something. I'm fascinated by asteroids (and comets) also. I'm not tooled up for real time video recording but like to make occasional animations of asteroid and comet motion. 

[Debo]

Fantastic