The International Occultation Timing Association's 33rd Annual
Meeting
University of
Southern Nevada Cheyenne Campus
North Las Vegas,
Nevada
October 16-18, 2015
by
Richard Nugent, Executive Secretary
Gerhard Dangl,
2015 Homer F. Daboll Award Recipient
Bob Sandy - 2015 David
E. Laird Award Recipient
The 33rd annual meeting of the
International Occultation Timing Association was held Friday, Saturday and
Sunday October 16-18, 2015 at the University of Southern Nevada Cheyenne Campus,
Las Vegas, Nevada. This location coincided with the occultation of the asteroid
215 Oenone covering a 39-km wide projected path near
the meeting site early Saturday morning October 17, 2015.
The meeting location was kindly
hosted by Rob Lambert of the Las Vegas Astronomical Society. The final meeting schedule, and most of the presentation files, are located on
the IOTA web site presentation page:
http://occultations.org/community/meetingsconferences/na/na2015/
The people participating in the
meeting in person and via internet conference:
On site attendees: President Steve Preston,
Vice President Dr. Roger Venable, Executive Secretary Richard Nugent, Ted
Blank, Russ McCormick, Tony George, Bruce Holenstein, Bob Sandy, Dylan
Holenstein, Dr. Terry Redding, Stephen Arthur, Ernie Iverson, Walt Morgan,
Steve Conard, Paul Maley, Larry Fleming, Danny Falla, Rob Lambert, Bill Hanna,
Chuck Herold, Karsten Schindler.
Internet Conference Attendees: Dr.
David Dunham, Derek Breit, Art Olsen,
Rafael Chavez, Chris Patrick, Brad Timerson, Rob Robinson, Ted Swift, Jan Manek, Gerhard Dangl, John
Brooks, John Newman, Chad Ellington, David Herald, Elizabeth Warner. NOTE:
If you were an online attendee and your name isn't here contact Richard Nugent,
email RNugent@wt.net to be included.
1:00PM – Meeting start – Introductions
Vice President Dr. Roger Venable opened the
meeting and welcomed everyone to the meeting.
President Steve
Preston thanked Rob Lambert of the Las Vegas Astronomical Society and the
University of Nevada for the use of the facility for the meeting. Steve also
mentioned that Kerry Coughlin, one of the "Baja Boys", who
contributed numerous positive asteroid occultations from Baja California,
passed away last year. He will be missed.
Steve Preston then presented Rob Lambert with a
Special Achievement Award for his contributions to IOTA since 2008.
Business meeting:
Walt Morgan presented an update on the
IOTA-VTI and introduced the IOTA-VTI version 3.
The VTI was out of production for a few months due a parts shortage and
its design was changed. An optional external GPS antenna is available and be
attached to each unit. A lithium battery provides a backup power source for the
GPS unit.
The key features of the IOTA VTI version 3 are:
Powered by 8 to 28v DC
(centre positive)
CCIR (PAL) or EIA (NTSC)
compatible
Will work without a camera
connected
LED to
confirm that a camera is connected.
Internal sensitive GPS is
standard
External GPS antenna
available
Characters have a
drop-shadow – viewable against say, the lunar bright limb
Comprehensive Data Quality
Assurance system
Lithium battery
give the unit a non-volatile memory
Licensed to IOTA to prevent
untimely withdrawal
Price US$249 + shipping
Can be purchased now at http://www.videotimers.com
The units were designed by Dave Gault
and Tony Barry of Australia. IOTA has exclusive rights to the units. Currently
Walt is the manufacturer. Each quarter, Walt send
royalties from the sales to Chad Ellington, IOTA's treasurer.
In March 2014 Globsat,
the manufacturer of the 406A Walt was buying, discontinued selling it. They
claimed that their new model 506 GPS would directly replace their model 406A,
but that was found not to apply to the IOTA-VTI. The more modern PA6H GPS from GlobTop was selected and that has resulted in improved
performance. A new circuit board was designed (Version 3) and production was
restarted after about a 5 month delay. The new board required a rewrite of the
software, which Tony Barry was able to do. To emphasize that there were
significant differences, a bone colored case was chosen for Version 3,
replacing the black case of Versions 1 and 2.
Since 2011 when the unit was introduced over 400
units have been sold. Most all of the units have been bought by IOTA and "occultationists", including Marc Buie's
RECON team. A federal agency in Brazil has bought some units, and even a
Norwegian Ski association bought 2 units. It was asked whether IOTA should
notify owners of older versions to upgrade to the newer Version 3 unit and
offer these people a discount. Walt said this offer should be made perhaps
every 6 months through the list server.
For attendees at this IOTA meeting, Walt offered a
discount price of $200 USD for the unit. The IOTA-VTI is available for purchase
at http://www.videotimers.com.
Treasurer Chad Ellington (presentation made by Roger
Venable due to technical problems with Chad's microphone) presented IOTA’s
membership status. Currently there are 29 USA print subscribers plus 3 outside
USA, 62 online subscribers, total subscribers is 94 with a net decrease of 1
member since last year. The trend of paid IOTA members (print plus online) has
steadily decreased in the past few years. Membership totals: 2011:142 members,
2012: 132 members,
2013: 101 members, 2014:
95 members, 2015: 95 members. It was mentioned that the IOTA list sever has
over 700 members.
This
trend could be explained by the fact that IOTA predictions, methods/techniques
and results are all online free. IOTA's Journal
of Occultation Astronomy (JOA) is only available to paid members.
Expense report: A summary of the year’s
bank balances are:
Starting
Balance: $7,544.48 2014, July
2
Ending
Balance: $9,608.45 2015, Oct
14 (Includes funds donated for a special
asteroid satellite award)
Net
Increase in Balance: $2,063.97 (but $2K is from the donations for
asteroid satellite award)
The breakdown of this past year’s
budget is:
Membership
Income: $600
IOTA-VTI
Royalties: $688 up $160 since last year
PayPal
Balance: $1417.55....but Chad lets it
accumulate to avoid transferring it
back and forth to the bank account and to
IOTA-ES
Expenses:
-Printing/Mailing
$1,372.75
-JOA: consistent from last year
-Web
Service: Still Donated
-Awards: $ Not paid for yet
The
(JOA) it is getting further behind on
schedule. More articles are needed. The new password access for downloading it
is working, however many folks have trouble remembering passwords.
This
year’s presentation of the annual Homer F. DaBoll award and David E. Laird award was made by the
Award Committee Chair Ted Blank. The Homer F. DaBoll award is given
annually to an individual in recognition of significant contributions to
Occultation Science. “Occultation Science” is limited to actual IOTA research:
total and grazing occultations, asteroid occultations and solar eclipses. The
David E. Laird award is given to people who have made significant contributions
to occultation science prior to 15 years ago. Laird (1931-1968) was an
organizer of grazing occultations in the early 1960’s. Laird also confirmed the
existence of a giant impact on the Lunar far side, The
Laird award was conceived to help “catch up” on awards to some older IOTA
members.
Previous
Homer F. Daboll awardees: 2007: Dave Herald (Australia), 2008: Edwin Goffin (Europe), 2009: Steve Preston (USA), 2010: Hristo
Pavlov (Australia), 2011: Scotty Degenhardt (USA),
2012: Kazuhisa Miyashita (Japan), 2013: Graham L. Blow (New Zealand). 2014:
Brian Loader (New Zealand)
Previous
David E. Laird awardees: 2013: Hal Povenmire (Florida), 2014: Gordon Taylor
(England).
This
year’s Award Committee consisted of all past recipients (above), Ted Blank (Chairman-Massachusetts)
Dr. Terry Redding (Florida) and Richard Nugent (Texas). This year 18
nominations were received – 8 for the Daboll award and 3 for the Laird award,
(2 nominations were ineligible). The Committee’s main objective in selecting an
award recipient was to reach a consensus and not choosing someone by a majority
vote. Eligibility for the award is for anyone who has made significant
contribution to occultation science or
for the work of IOTA and its goals. Persons not eligible are current IOTA
Officers & the award committee. Candidates nominated are not required to
have IOTA membership.
The 2015 Homer F. DaBoll award recipient
was Austrian astronomer Gerhard Dangl. Gerhard has made numerous contributions to the
occultation community with his numerous video camera studies and analysis of
rates, frames, internal timing, etc. and his numerous astrometric measurements.
Gerhard is also honored by having asteroid 47494 Gerhardangl officially named after him on
April 9, 2009.
Gerhard was
notified of the award a few days before the meeting and sent a response for the
Daboll award to Ted Blank. Ted read it at the meeting.
The
2015 David E. Laird went to Robert
"Bob" Sandy of Blue
Springs, Missouri for his 55+ years
of dedicated occultation activities. Since 1960 Bob has timed 1,189 Zodiacal
Catalog stars and over 2,000 non-Z.C. stars, led over 150 grazing occultations
expeditions (all with his own drawn pictorial reductions). Bob was one of the
first people to notice 0.2 deg discrepancy in the Watts lunar limb charts. In
addition Bob has discovered and observed new double stars from grazes. He
observed partial planetary occultations of Uranus (2/10/77) and Saturn
(11/13/67).
Bob
shared some of his memorable observations over his 55+ year occultation career
and showed some slides of observers from the 1960's. Bob showed a slide of the
"timing cables" used for multiple graze observers. The cable could be
laid out for about 1 mile. Each graze observer would have a timing button they
would press when they saw an event and it would be recorded by a recording unit
at the end of the cable.
This
year a Special Achievement Award was given to Rob Lambert of the Las Vegas Astronomical Society. Rob has led numerous expeditions and conducted site surveys for
asteroid occultations including the highly successful Sophrosyne
event (Nov 26, 2013), Marion event Mar 7, 2015) and several others. Rob
arranging the IOTA Las Vegas meeting in 2012 and this year 2015.
The
IOTA Lifetime Achievement Award is
conferred by the IOTA board of Directors. It’s not an annual award, but done at
the discretion of the Board. This time the award is given to Hans-Joachim Bode for
establishing both the European Symposium on Occultation Projects (ESOP) and the
IOTA/ES Organization, and for his many years of nurturing and growing these institutions
to encourage members in many countries to observe occultations and eclipses.
Technical
Sessions
Paul Maley presented
his results of the 2015 May 24 occultation of Regulus by Dagmar in Saudi
Arabia. The entire path was in daylight except for Saudi Arabia and the Indian
Ocean. The logistics from Paul's contacts (hotel, transportation, how many
observers, visas, etc.) was sketchy until less than 2 weeks before the event.
Due to the unclear plan Richard Nugent and Chuck Herold canceled out of the
trip at the last minute. David and Joan Dunham also canceled out to Saudi
Arabia but went to Indonesia instead. Paul brought the equipment and showed how
the Saudi observers were introduced to the Mighty Minis and how to start the
recorders. With 6 sites laid out, only Paul was able to get the event. Other
sites had problems run by the students, including pointing to the wrong star
and not able to get the Canon recorders started. Two miss observations were
also recorded. The student with Paul used his 35mm DSLR camera and actually got
the event as shown in a light curve analysis.
Paul
showed the occultation of m = +8.4
mag HIP 12740 by 106 Dione as he observed from India
in September 2015. This event Paul
arranged as part of a tour in which 8 persons went, with the occultation being
just side event on the tour. It turned out the actual site Paul used near a
lake had cars running their headlights, people all over and even pigs walking around ! To add to
this mess 2 minutes before the event people had started fires at the edge of
the lake in the direction of the target star. The observational results were 2
positives and even a miss observation from someone in China who happened to be
just outside the predicted path edge.
Paul
showed the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) target events for 2016.
Currently there are no funding for these events but
this could change. Paul showed their #1 priority event 283 Emma for April 16,
2016 with an m = +8.9 mag star. Nine other events were shown. Many of SWRI
events have moons with poorly known orbits, hence the need to observe them.
Steve Conard presented
results of the spectra of an occultation from Jupiter's moon Europa occulting
Io from May 11, 2015. Steve used a Celestron 14-inch telescope with a Shelyak Alpy Spectrometer.
Alignment of the moons from the 3 arc-second wide slit was good and he recorded
at 5-second integrations. He collected data for 30 minutes before and after the
event. The observations showed that there was much noise associated with the
spectral curves before during and after the occultation. In addition some
clouds impacted the signal level at event time. Jupiter also contributed stray
light. Steve postulated next time he tries this type of event there are some
ways to minimize this in the data analysis.
Drs. David
and Joan Dunham next presented a summary of their trip “down under” in
Australia. The Dunhams have been to Australia several
times since 1980 and he first met Dave Herald in 1986 while attempting to
observe the occultation of a m = +6.8
star by Halley's Comet during a total lunar eclipse.
David
had designed some of the software of the MESSENGER spacecraft mission. When it crashed on Mercury on
April 30, 2015 his duties were over and the very next day he left for
Australia. Some of his goals while there in addition to
sightseeing was to promote occultation science, observe some special
occultation events and develop improved observing and equipment techniques. He also attended the 9th Trans-Tasman
Symposium on occultations in New Zealand during this trip.
On
May 21-28, 2015 he went to Sumatra/Indonesia to attempt the Regulus occultation
by 1669 Dagmar. At Paul Maley's Saudi site, the
University could only support 6 stations, leaving Dunham to attempt it from
Sumatra. With only a 5 degree altitude
of Regulus, only 1 of 4 stations the Dunhams setup
was able to record the event. The event was barely detectable due the
atmospheric conditions and low altitude. Tony George and Brad Timerson were
able to extract an occultation from the data.
The
next day they flew to Yogyakarta to observe the Delta Sagittarii
occultation by Jupiter. Five of six planned sites were manned but cloudy
conditions prevented the observation to all but 2 westernmost stations.
May
29 - he
attempted a Venus Occultation from Brisbane of m = +6.2 HIP 79580. The
glare from Venus foiled the visibility of the event.
June
18 - occultation of a m = +12.3 star by 145 Adeona. The Dunhams ran 2 stations and Richard Williamson observed from
his observatory. No stations had an occultation.
Other
events he attempted: June 29 an occultation of an m = +12.3 mag star by Pluto. Clouds forced him to move and he
reached clear sky 20 minutes before the event but hadn't the time to lock on
the target. The occultation was observed
by the SOFIA satellite from the predicted central line s.e. of NZ with a good recording of the central
flash. Although some stations were clouded out, several recorded the event from
New Zealand & one from Tasmania. D. Herald at Murrumbateman,
NSW had the closest miss observation.
July
17 occultation of m = +11.9 mag star
by 266 Aline.
Two out of six stations got positives on this event, batteries failed
with the other 4 stations.
August
2-14, he attended the IAU convention in Honolulu. See more about the conference
below in the Sunday talks.
Aug
22, 100 Hekate with m = +10 star. Dunhams ran 8 stations. 5
stations had positives, 3 stations were misses. This resulted in a good
profile.
Sep
5, occultation of m = +12.4 mag star
by Artemus. He had 2 successful occultations. An
integrating camera had to be used to bring out the faint star.
Sep
11, occultation of 9.2 mag star by 233 Asterope. They
ran 11 stations, 7 stations were positive, 3 stations had a miss and 1
station's battery was too low at event time. This was Dunham's most successful
multi-station event.
Oct 8, an occultation of Venus by the 15% Moon with an
attempt to record the Ashen light. His recordings showed no indication
of the Ashen light.
Dunham next
discussed his previous-night pre-pointing with paver mounts. John Broughton
designed a "paver mount" which utilizes a typical backyard paver
patio stone. An altitude-adjustable cradle is attached to the 12" wide
paver stone. The heavy 20+ pound (10 kg) weight of the paver stones make for a
sturdy mount sitting low to the ground with hardly any visibility from the
road.
His
first attempt with these mounts was the June 22, 2015 m
= +5.1 48 Leonis graze with 6 stations. Two stations
were successful.
Next
attempt with the paver mounts was the July 31 event with 420 Bertholda occulting a m = +10.3 star. Four paver mounts were set
up and with 2 attended stations, 1 paver station had a positive. One of the
stations (Station 4) was apparently attacked by an animal and hence got no event !
Sep
30, 697 Galilea occultation of an m = +6.3 star. Paver stones weren't
available, so they used corkboard. The corkboard was nailed to the ground with
nails. Unfortunately no stations had a positive which included several in New
Zealand. The stations had the usual problems - clouds, battery failure, scope mount
kicked by mistake and recorder didn't work.
Steve
Preston
spoke about this evening plans for the stations for tonight's occultation by
(215) Oenone. At meeting time, the weather indicated
clouds and thunderstorms with only a slight chance of a hole in the clouds. (The event was clouded out in the Las Vegas
area. Only 1 chord was obtained by Dr. Richard Nolthenius in California)
9:00 AM
Saturday, Technical Sessions continue
Bob Sandy passed
around an eyepiece he made with a protractor grid allowing the observer to know
in advance the cusp angle of a reappearance event.
While
internet technical problems were being fixed, the onsite attendees then
introduced themselves.
Dr. Roger
Venable
presented a perspective of the 2002 solar eclipse observation of Baily's Beads.
Roger observed Baily's beads in Dec 4 2002 in the outback of Australia with 4
telescopes with different narrow band filters using a quad recorder. Roger
could view in real time each video simultaneously on his monitor. There is an
issue in seeing the actual eclipse real time on the monitor with the different
filters vs. later on from the video recording. For example an image on one
monitor was bright so he turned down the gain for that camera. However upon
examining the video after the eclipse, turning down the brightness on the
bright image gave a black background on another recorder using a different
filter. Hence some data was lost. His observation of this eclipse was used by
David Dunham in his solar radius calculations.
Roger
showed a graph from a 2012 paper (Raponi, Sigismondi, et. al) from the Jan 2010 eclipse. The
disappearance and reappearance of a particular bead from observations by
Richard Nugent (Uganda) and Andreas Tegtmeier (India)
was analyzed. The paper suggested that inflection points on
the graph indicates where the solar limb was. However this limb was may
not be the actual solar edge as different wavelengths transmit different solar
radii. Roger offered several reasons why bead observations have problems in
determining the solar radius, namely color differences at the limb,
diffraction, Mei scattering by electrostatically elevated dust at the limb and
issues with the bright inner part of the chromosphere.
Roger's
analysis of the color differences at the solar limb suggests that a different
measuring approach be taken at future eclipses.
He proposed obtaining photometry of the Beads in both the red and blue
wavelengths, using a large aperture telescope to minimize scintillation during
photometry and obtain low resolution spectra of Beads while simultaneously
acquiring photometry. Later in the day
David Dunham proposed that IOTA begin its preparations and techniques to
prepare for the Aug 2017 total eclipse over the USA.
Steve Conard
(with Bruce and Dylan Holenstein) talked about progress and testing on emCCD (electron
multiplying CCD) camera testing. In 2015 Conard and Bruce Holenstien
observed some lunar occultations. Their limited time available made them unable
to attempt any asteroid events. On Feb 28, 2015 they observed the Lamda Gemini occultation by the Moon. The Tangra graph
showed 13 transitions in brightness in the 0.3-sec before disappearance. The
sampling rate was 200 Hz. Steve pointed out that it is exceedingly unlikely
that the occultation geometry could support such transitional events, and the
200 Hz sampling would have to produce many more partial levels than we are
seeing. The observed transitions he concluded was an
instrumental effect and not a real effect. With new equipment Steve will
investigate dependence of wavelength on the high speed data.
Steve
is observatory director for the new Roelke
Observatory near Westminster, MD. This has a 14″ SCT on a heavier mount
than Conard’s own Willow Oak Observatory, and should
allow for heavier payloads. Steve likely will soon have access to a 0.6m R-C
telescope at his place of employment. They are trying to obtain access to a 0.8
m R-C at a Baltimore area university as well. All these potential telescopes
should allow us to test these heavy cameras on relatively larger apertures. The
team will continue to look to try faint TNO events.
- - break -
-
Elizabeth
Warner presented
an update on the Astronomical Digital Video System (ADVS) at the University
of Maryland. Ms. Warner is the Director of the University of Maryland
Observatory operated by the Astronomy department. She got the video system
running and made their 1st observation of 2015 on Jan 10 with the asteroid
occultation of 489 Comacina.
Several
problems arose - one cable broke due to the cold weather, and they couldn't
change the frame rate. Michael Barry and Dave Gault
helped work on this issue. Several more asteroid occultation events were
attempted in 2015 including the 46441 Mikepenston event on Sep 8. Elizabeth was on vacation during this event
but she had trained 2 students to work the equipment who were successful and
got a 1/2 sec occultation. A 3.75 frames/sec rate was used for this recording.
Steve
Preston
presented an analog video capture with PC’s. It works with Windows 7/8/10, and Virtual Dub and uses the StarTech driver. Total hardware and software cost is around
$200. The system records to an AVI file. The system has Manual mode with a
stop/start option and a timer mode with a start stop via the timer. Recording
time is 30 minutes without an SD card.
Steve showed some tips on how to run the system and viewing and
analyzing the AVI files.
Bob
Sandy asked how one would determine if frames are dropped. Tony George
mentioned that one could use the R-OTE, OCCULAR and AOTA programs to examine
the VTI output to compare corresponding frames.
-- lunch break --
Ted Blank presented
how he generates pre-point charts with Guide, and experiences in using them.
Pre-pointing is the way to have your telescope pointed on the target star at
the time of the occultation without any motor drive, polar alignment, etc. The
technique involves pointing at a field long before the event. The telescope
will remain fixed in place. As the Earth rotates, the target star will drift
into the FOV at the time of the event. As an example if you're setting up a
telescope 1 hour before the event, you would point your telescope at a field 1
hour in RA less than the target star RA.
Pre-pointing
is superior to a motor driven telescope as no polar alignment is needed, no
motor drive is needed and visibility of the target star is not necessary.
Pre-pointing allows you to pre-point to a much brighter star at the
same/similar declination with a lower right ascension .
Guide is the
recommended software to make pre-point charts. Version 9 of Guide is now freeware
and Ted brought a few copies on DVDs to pass out to the on-site attendees. Ted
showed how to use Guide and its options to set up the pre-point charts. A
typical Guide chart will have a line with time tic marks. The tic marks will
have times marked (a time line) for a particular event. If your telescope is
pointed at a FOV at the time marked by the time on the tic mark, then it will
be pointing at the target star at the moment of the occultation.
Ted
then continued with how to make pre-point charts and using them in the field.
Some common sense pointers: don’t print charts with times prior to sunset, use
equatorial charts if your telescope is equatorially mounted, use alt/az charts if your telescope is on a tripod. Don't use a
laptop as a chart - the screen will be too bright ruining your night vision and
it’s helpful to have some overlap with adjacent charts. Printing charts several
days before the event allows you to practice and identify easy stars that you
find in the process. A wristwatch that you use should have accurate time and be
backlit to be able to see the time at night.
Ernie
Iverson
spoke about Avisynth scripts useful in occultation work. Avisynth is a macro
that opens/post processes recorded videos with a variety of options. Ernie showed
an occultation example of 96 Aegle from 2010 in which
he originally reported a miss. Later on he found out he had an occultation by
viewing it on a larger screen. The functions discussed
enable the observer to better see various parameters associated with their
video recording.
Some
options Avisynth offers are brightness and contrast controls, scale factor
changes, noise reduction, etc. Avisynth opens videos without creating extra
files.
Avisynth
can be created as a text file and saved as an avs file.
In Limovie under the button
"OPEN AVI FILE", the user would click on the avs
file (located in the same directory as the video) and Limovie will open the video. Ernie explained the particulars of
what functions/plug-ins need to be entered into the avs
file, such as the file name, its path. The
function DVInfo is used to display the Canon ZR
camcorder time stamp to resolve issues with inserted time code.
The
function LanczosResize
changes the aspect ratio of the video to match the sky since many
DVR's change the sky’s aspect ratio when recording usually by some compression
scheme which isn’t uniform in both vertical and horizontal directions of the
video. Another function Ernie mentioned was very useful is the Level filter.
This one adjusts the brightness/gamma of the video. He suggested setting the gamma to 1.0 and
leaving it alone. The Coring function relates to the range of input pixel
values, he suggested setting Coring to "False" and then leave it alone. By
changing the range of pixels set to pure black and pure white the Level
filter will increase the brightness of the pixels and reduce the noise making
fainter stars visible.
When Ernie applied the various enhancements to his 96 Aegle occultation video, the occultation came out. Ernie also mentioned the "AddThree" function written by Steve Preston. It integrates either 3, 5 or any odd number of frames you want. This function integrates the video by adding adjacent frames. Since multiple frames are combined there is a time synchronization issue.
The
Magnify function enlarges a user defines portion of the video. In particular
for double stars, if the stars merge, the magnify function can help separate
the stars for positional measurement.
Executive
Secretary Richard Nugent presented a video drift method to measure double stars that
he and colleague Ernie Iverson have used for the past 5 years. The method uses
the same equipment and software as for an occultation observation – telescope,
video camera, VTI, digital video recorder and Limovie software for reducing videos.
In
2010, Richard noticed that Limovie’s
output CSV file (in additional to listing brightness data) also lists the (x,y) coordinates of up to 3 target stars for each video frame.
This was all he needed to know to determine that he was going to start
measuring double stars for position angle and separation. A major advantage of
the technique over any other method is the large no. of data points generated
by short 25-30 sec videos. At 30 frames/sec a 30-sec video produces 900 (x,y) pairs for analysis with each frame generating a position
angle and separation which are averaged.
Thus
far Nugent and Iverson have published over 1,100 double star measurements in
the Journal of Double Star Observations
(JDSO). With their respective 14″ SCT telescope equipment, they have a
scale factor of 0.6″/pixel and have measured doubles down to 3.5″-5″
separation, typically with separation standard deviations averaging 0.37″.
In 2014, Iverson devised a modified drift method that now allows the
measurement of doubles down to m =
+17 and fainter, thus tripling the number of doubles within reach of the
telescopes.
Nugent
showed videos of how the modified drift method works using an integrating
camera to reach faint doubles. First the integration is set to reach the faint
doubles with the telescope's motor drive on (16 frames combined for example).
With the video still running the integration level is brought down to 30
frames/sec and a brighter nearby star at
the same or nearly the same declination is brought into the field and
allowed to drift several times across the FOV. All along the video continues to
record. The motor driven integrated portion of the video allows measurement of
the PA and separation of the double star in arbitrary units while the drift
portion allows the computation of scale factor and drift angle.
To
get the PA and Sep of the double star, the user will manually enter the drift
angle and scale factor from the drift phase into the reduction program Vidpro (VIdeo Drift Program ReductiOn). The modified drift method
was presented at the SAS conference at Ontario CA in June by Ernie
Iverson.
Dave Herald next talked
about archiving occultation light curves in Occult -- a software update. Dave
started out by describing how historical lunar occultations were archived. In
the latter half of the 1900's considerable interest developed in discovering
double stars from lunar occultations. Many (70%) of these suspected doubles
from occultations were caused by diffraction effects and the large stellar
diameters. Many suspect doubles were verified by modern video camera recordings
at frame resolutions that far exceed those of the visual observers.
Around
the year 2000 video recordings became common and are the standard today. Limovie
was released in June 2005 and revolutionized occultation data reduction. Tangra, another occultation video
reduction program was released in 2009 by Hristo Pavlov. The use of these
programs has helped identify, verify and discover double stars. In addition the programs could analyze
gradual light curves and distinguish between stellar diameter and Fresnel
diffraction.
In
seeking a method to archive IOTA's light curves, Dave has been in contact with
the folks who run the VisieR
astronomical data base. They have been very supportive to us in archiving our
light curves. So the challenge is what data needs to be collected with a light
curve. What will be needed for any investigator to examine the light curve/data
is (at the very minimum) the date, light curve duration, star ID, lunar libration/limb slope, observing location and observer name.
Currently
Limovie can save a light curve into
the clipboard. Whatever method used to archive light curves/reports, it must be
easy to use. The method and data format must be able to consolidate reports, be
user friendly and deal with spam issues and be able to meet VisieR requirements.
Dave
next talked about the discovery of the
radio source 3C273 and the first extragalactic jet. 3C273 is known as the
1st quasar, 1st radio jet, 1st inverted spectral radio source, 1st radio and
variable spectral source, and the 1st black hole. A Hubble image clearly shows
to the lower right of the star-like object an optical jet.
People
involved in the discovery were Cyril Hazard, Maartin
Schmidt, John Bolton, W. Nicholson and Tom Matthews. Telescopes involved were
the 200-inch at Palomar, Parkes and OVRO radio
telescopes.
3C
273 was a radio source whose position was not known accurately. An occultation occurred on August 5, 1962 in
which an emersion and immersion occurred of the radio source. John Bolton
communicated a position to Maartin Schmidt supposedly
with a precision of 0.2″ in DEC and 0.1s in RA of the “B” component but
this position had problems and could have been 10″ off. Another
occultation occurred on October 26, 1962 with the Parkes
radio telescope and in early 1963 Hazard wrote to
Schmidt with the correct occultation positions for A and B components and
suggested a joint publication. This core-jet radio structure now coincided very
closely with the optical image. Component B was now clearly identified as the
bright STAR counterpart in the optical image.
In
February 1963 Maartin Schmidt examined the spectra of
the optical counterpart of the radio source and was puzzled that none of the
absorption lines matched the laboratory comparison spectrum. He finally
realized the Hβ, Hγ and Hδ
lines of 3C 273 were red-shifted
approximately 16%. This indicated a redshift of z = 0.16. The result was
published in a letter to Nature for March 1963 and this discovery has forever
changed astronomy.
Herald
next presented asteroidal occultation results since
the last meeting. About 200 asteroid events are being observed each year. A slight
decline from 2010 occurred but 2014 was a record year. He presented statistics for the 2014
successful asteroidal occultations by region - Japan,
Australasia, Europe and North America.
He
mentioned the discoveries from asteroid occultations: asteroidal
satellites, double stars and rings around 10199 Chariklo.
A satellite discovery (unconfirmed) on Jan 19, 2012 of 911 Agamemnon occurred
in the USA. Although this discovery is unconfirmed, the evidence indicated a
real satellite and a paper was published in Planetary
and Space Science for March 2013 entitled "Occultation Evidence for a Satellite of the Trojan Asteroid 911
Agamemnon". A second discovery
(also unconfirmed) was on Aug 3, 2013 of 2258 Viipuri.
Dave next showed a profile of rings discovered around the asteroid 10199 Chariklo.
Dave
showed plots of several inversion (light curve) models of several asteroids
including 25 Phocaea, Pallas, Geographos, 9 Metis (2
models) and 135 Hertha from Dec. 2008. Currently over
2,700 asteroid occultations observations have been observed and archived. This
includes 12,600 observations (many are misses). This comes to an average of 5
observations per event.
The
regional coordinator collects occultation events and analyzes them for
completeness and forwards this info to the global coordinator who is currently Dave Herald. He periodically sends a
report of astrometry derived from occultations to the Minor Planet Centre –
with all associated observers being named, and this information is included in
the SAO/NASA ADS (Astronomical Data System). All asteroid reports appear (after
a comprehensive review process) to NASA's online Planetary Data System. This data set is submitted to NASA by David
Dunham and Dave Herald.
Dr. David
Dunham
presented a Report on 29th general assembly of IAU in Honolulu from August. The
IAU meets every 3 years and is the premier organization of professional
astronomers. Several symposia were presented including one on “Asteroids, New
Observations and New Models.” Also a presentation was given on the Gaia mission
results.
David
gave 4 poster presentations, Sizes, Shapes and Satellites from Asteroid
Occultations, Double stars from asteroid occultations, Solar diameter results
from total and annular solar eclipses and Plans for the 2017 August 21st
total solar eclipse. David mentioned Scotty Deganhardt
in the asteroid occultation paper whose modified
multi-station deployments has revolutionized asteroid occultation events. The
posters also showed the 90 Antiope binary asteroid profile, and the 3D inversion shape models
compared to occultation profiles.
One
poster presentation was close double stars discovered from occultation
recordings for Commission 26 on Double Stars.
It included a paper in JDSO
Double Stars discovered from Lunar Occultations and double stars discovered
from asteroid occultations.
He
also presented Solar Diameter Measurements from Eclipses since 1970 at the path
edges. The talk included solar diameter determinations from eclipses up until
the Aug 2008 eclipse. His final poster presentation was Plans to Observe the
2017 Total Solar eclipse. He showed Ted Swift's May 2012 Baily's Beads video frames.
Two
occultations occurred during the General Assembly. A grazing occultation event
Aug 5 by the m = +6.5 star 96 Piscium across southern Honolulu. For Aug 13 a possible
asteroid event with a +9.6 star by 1197 Rhodesia would occur. Ernie Iverson
prepared the pre-point charts for this event. David got a miss from his location
and the single successful event was made by Bart Billard
in Fredrickburg, VA using the CCD drift scan.
Meeting
ended 6:30 PM. Attendees continued discussions at a local restaurant.
9:00 AM
Sunday – Technical sessions continue
Karsten
Schindler
presented Occultation work with SOFIA and the University of Stuttgart's 60 cm
(24-inch) telescope. He showed a slide of SOFIA in flight - it has a 2.4 meter
telescope that can be used with the door of the plane open. SOFIA is a modified
Boeing 747 that flies at 850 km/hr. At this speed, the telescope has to be
de-coupled from the plane's vibrations. This is done with special springs
keeping the telescope suspended. Observations are typically done from
39,000-44,000 ft. Flight plans for each flight have to be approved by the FAA
and flights can typically last for 8-10 hours.
Currently about 2-3 flights are made each week with an
annual cost of about 74 million dollars.
SOFIA
has the several instruments -
HIPO
- High Speed Imaging Photometer for Occultations,
FPI+
- Upgraded Focal Plane Imager, can image to 400 frames/sec down to m = +16 making it a very fast
photometer. FPI+ works so flawlessly it is now a permanent SOFIA instrument.
SOFIA
observed the Pluto occultation June 23, 2011. The flight path took it over the
mid-Pacific ocean where it observed the occultation. The timing was critical to
observe the central flash - the plane must be within a 100km zone at the center
of the path and within 1-minute of the mid-event. All this while traveling at 850 km/hr ! The star being occulted was m
= +14.6. Karsten showed a video of this event. The resultant occultation light
curve profile was published in the Astronomical
Journal (AJ) in 2014. The central flash was only barely visible on the
light curve as a gentle rise in the light curve at mid-event. This indicated a
level of haze in Pluto's atmosphere.
Another
Pluto occultation occurred June 29, 2015 just 2 weeks before the New Horizons
mission flyby. This star was m =
+12.1 and the occultation path was south of Australia. He showed a video of
this event which clearly showed the central flash. The light curve also had a
spike at mid-eclipse showing the central flash.
Karsten
next showed the Sierra remote observatory located 50 miles South of Yosemite National Park and about 50 miles
North of Kings Canyon National Park in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. It includes some 10 roll off roof
observatories. The 60cm (24-inch)
telescope he uses there is controlled remotely. The telescope is used for
photometry, astrometry and is a hardware/software test platform for SOFIA. Since Sept 2014 they have observed 16
occultation events. The camera system used can time stamp each CCD image frame
(up to 202 fps 32x32) and down to 9 fps at full frame resolution at
0.56"/pixel. The first positive
occultation was 34 Circe on Oct 7 2014. His chord was one of 2 positives for
this event.
Karsten
mentioned some future plans he has in mind - including determining the sizes of
some of Jupiter’s 50+ moons using the occultation technique.
Brad
Timerson
presented the best observed North American Asteroidal
events of the last year through July 2014 thru September 2015.
24 August
2014 393 Lampetia – 5 chords
6 September 2014 93 Minerva – 9 chords, has known satellite
18 September
2014 82 Alkmene
– 4 chords
20 November
2014 3 Juno – 2 chords
10 December
2014 127 Johanna – 2 chords
10 January
2015 489 Comacina – 5 chords
10 January
2015 786 Bredichina – 4 chords
20 January
2015 702 Alauda – 4 chords
30 January
2015 166 Rhodope – 5
chords
18 February
2015 71 Niobe – 5 chords
7 March 2015 506 Marion – 10 chords!
2 April 2015 90 Antiope – 14 chords, double star
15 April
2015 595 Polyxena
– 5 chords
6 May 2015 107 Camilla – 3 chords
20 June 2015 426 Hippo – 4 chords
17 July 2015 679 Pax – 3
chords, 2-model fit
23 August
2015 107 Camilla – 6
chords
4 September
2015 409 Aspasia – 5
chords
For
these events Brad showed the shape profiles and inversion model comparisons
when available. The 90 Antiope event of
April 15, 2015 had 23 positive chords once again showing both binary
components.
Brad
next presented “How well do inversion models fit historical asteroidal
occultations?” Some issues he examined are: do present modeling techniques fit
old events?, does one model fit better than another?
Regarding multi-Year Model Fits, How do models fit the same asteroid over time?
Inversion
models have only been around for 6 or 7 years. IOTA has asteroid profiles gong
back 40+ years. Brad pulled some older asteroid profiles including Juno (Dec 3
1979), Pallas (May 29, 1983, 235 chords) and overlaid them on modern day
inversion models and the fits were excellent. This considering that many
earlier occultations were visual ! He then showed model fits for asteroids with
multi-year model fits. The fits were good, remembering that the asteroids have
rotated and changed their orientations.
Some model fits spanned 7 years, and 93 Minerva's models spanned 32 years with excellent fits
from 1982, 2010 and 2014 !
- - break - -
Steve
Preston
next presented the best asteroidal occultations
upcoming in late in 2015 and in 2016 over North America. They are:
October 30, 2015 415 Palatia
November 7, 2015 778) Theobalda
November 11, 2015 29 Amphitrite
January 22, 2016 115 Thyra
January 24, 2016 866 Fatme
Binary April 4, 2016 216 Kleopatra
August 27, 2016 85 Io
September 3, 2016 51 Nemausa
September 8, 2016 224 Oceana
September 14, 2016 372 Palma
September 14, 2016 487 Venetia
October 31, 2016 814 Tauris
Dr. David
Dunham
next presented Upcoming total and grazing lunar occultations (especially
Aldebaran). David first mentioned that Dr. Richard Nolthenius got a positive
occultation from Friday nights 215 Oenone event and
he may be the only observer that had one since the Las Vegas area was clouded
out.
David
showed graze maps from the RASC Observer's Handbook. He mentioned just 2 good
grazes remain for 2015 over North America:
Aldebaran by the full Moon Nov 25, 2015.
Dec
6 2015, by a m
= +4.4 star over southern Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. 2016 grazes include a
naked eye graze of Aldebaran July 29, 2016.
David suggested we might advertise this event and schedule IOTA's
presence there.
Another
Aldebaran graze occurs October 19 with an 87% sunlit Moon. The path goes over
southern California, Las Vegas and up thru Canada.
The meeting
ended at 11:55 AM.
The International Occultation Timing Association is the
primary scientific organization that predicts,
observes and analyses lunar and asteroid occultations and solar eclipses.
IOTA astronomers have organized teams of observers worldwide to travel to observe grazing occultations of stars by the Moon, eclipses
of stars by asteroids and solar eclipses since 1962.