IOTA: Watch for Camilla satellite Sept. 5; 7th-mag. Palisana change, etc.

I received the following information from David Dunham of the International
Occultation and Timing Association, and want to share it with you.

Ed Flaspoehler, AAAA
www.astromax.com

Details of the following items can be found on the IOTA Web site at
http://iota.jhuapl.edu . Steve Preston's asteroidal occultation
update Web site is at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com .
Some further information is after the list of topics.

1. Sept. 5th occultation by 107 Camilla & satellite; observers
in most of North America should look for an occultation.

2. Sept. 11/12 7th-mag. Palisana occultation - the path is
uncertain by 1.2 path-widths! Read about a newly calculated
path 1.2 path-widths north of the last posted one.

3. New reductions of the occultations near/during the IOTA meeting
in California are now available, with an interesting result for
(64) Angelina.

4. European Symposium on Occultation Projects 2004 was recently
held in Paris with many interesting papers that are listed from
a link given at my Web site.

5. The Latest Occultation Observing and Results Presentations

6. Aug. 21st Occultation by the small asteroid (1903) Adzhimushkaj
observed from California.
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1. Observations by observers from MOST OF NORTH AMERICA are
sought for the occultation and appulse of 11.8-mag. TYC 5244-00017-1
(in Pisces s. of the Circlet at J2000 RA 23h 28m 16.5s, Dec. -2 deg.
25' 24") by the 222-km asteroid 107 Camilla just before 9h UT on
Sept. 5 UT, conveniently early Sunday morning (late Saturday night)
of the long Labor-Day weekend. Adaptive optics observations show
that Camilla has a sizeable satellite orbiting some 1000 km from the
asteroid, but unfortunately, recent observations were attempted but
could not be made due to weather, so we don't know where the
satellite path will go. In any case, observers should get finder
charts, path information (look at the USA/Canada map, with time
marked along the path at 1-minute intervals, of 8h UT), and other
details of this event from Steve Preston's Web site and are
encouraged to observe (the nominal path goes over central Arizona to
Iowa and central Ontario, just a little north of the Sept. 11/12
Palisana path). Those within 1000 km of the central line (in the
sky plane; a little more on the ground) are encouraged to monitor
the star for a possible occultation from 2 minutes before to 2
minutes after the predicted closest approach time for your location.
This includes all of the contiguous "lower 48" States except n.w.
Washington and Florida; all of southern Canada except B.C.,
Edmonton, and Newfoundland (where twilight will be too strong).
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2. Palisana Occ'n, problems and maps - updated 2004 Sept. 2

The occultation of 7.2-mag. SAO 36280 A = HIP 1642 A by the 76-km
asteroid (914) Palisana may be the best occultation of 2004 in North
America, with the occultation of the bright star visible from coast
to coast, from Nova Scotia at 5:06 UT to central Baja California at
5:18 UT (of Sept. 12 UT), also the middle of a Saturday night local
time. Unfortunately, the current prediction is much more uncertain
than the formal errors imply because the star's proper motion can
be calculated in two different ways that give a difference of about
1.2 path-widths in the path location, and we are not sure which is
best. There's a small chance that new observations can resolve the
situation. Find maps of both paths and finder charts, and read about
the differences in an item near the top of my Web site. Also, Steve
Preston reports that he will be calculating updates to the paths for
both components on Sept. 3 or 4 after he receives the latest batch
of observations of Palisana from Flagstaff to make the final update
of Palisana's orbit.
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3. IOTA Meeting in Calif. July 2 & 3 - updated 2004 Sept. 2

This year's IOTA meeting held at the Lewis Center in Apple Valley,
California on July 2-3 was a huge success. Four of the five
asteroidal occultations during the 7 days surrounding the meeting
dates were successfully observed, with nearly final results
now given on my Web site. Angelina was much smaller than expected
because it's a bright E-class asteroid. Power Point and other files
are available for most of the meeting presentations.
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4. European Symposium on Occultation Projects 2004

The ESOP 2004 program is now available, directly at
http://calys.obspm.fr/~ESOP2004/program.html .
I found that it was best viewed with Netscape; many of the titles
and lines were truncated when I viewed it with Internet Explorer.
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5. The Latest Occultation Observing and Results Presentations

On August 20 and 21, I gave two talks at the large Starfest 2004
star party in Ontario. My Power Point presentations for these are
available on my Web site, but they are large files.
1st was "Observing Occultations", which describes
occultations and methods to observe them, including visual and video
techniques, and new information on how to set up to observe
asteroidal occultations with remote video systems.
2nd was "Exploring the Cosmos with Occultations".
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6. Aug. 21st Occultation by the small asteroid (1903) Adzhimushkaj
observed from California - new 2004 Aug. 24.

The occultation of a 9.7-mag. star by (1903) Adzhimushkaj was observed
by Ed Morana and Richard Nolthenius in California.
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David Dunham, I.O.T.A., September 3, 2004