IOTA: July 21 asteroid occ'n of 31 Psc in w. Europe; other events to Aug. 13

I received the following notice of upcoming asteroid occultations this morning
from David Dunham of the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA),
and wanted to pass it along.

Ed Flaspoehler, President
American Association of Amateur Astronomers
http://www.astromax.com/

Early this coming evening (July 15th local time, 16th UT),
9.5-mag. SAO 158075 will be occulted by the small asteroid (1561) Fricke
for observers in southern Mexico, northern Central America, northern
Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Next week, early on July 21st, 6.4-mag. 31 Piscium will be occulted by the
95-km asteroid (773) Irmintraud as seen from a south-to-north path crossing
Africa and
western Europe, including Catalonia, w. France, s.w. England, and
Ireland, a good binoculars event and probably the best asteroidal
occultation in Europe this year.

Updated information about these and other asteroidal
occultations visible from North and South America, Europe, Asia, New
Zealand, & Australia and other areas through Aug. 7th, and one later
event, are summarized according to calculations by Steve Preston
(comprehensive here only for North America; occultations of brighter
stars given for other areas) and Jan Manek (for Europe) in the tables
for asteroidal occultations, and then for planetary occultations, below.

Updated path maps, finder charts, and other detailed information about
these events can be found at the Web sites at the end of this message;
Steve Preston's Web site also has path updates for South America,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and often other areas, while Jan Manek's
site covers Europe and southern Africa (but some European events are
instead on Preston's site, especially trans-Atlantic events); you should
consult them since I mainly list the better foreign and North American
events here.

Under "Approx. location", places are spelled out when they
can be, but usually it is necessary to use the standard two-letter
postal abbreviations for the States of the USA and provinces of Canada
(for example, AB = Alberta, NB = New Brunswick, NE = Nebraska) or the
two-letter country abbreviations used in Web and e-mail addresses (FR =
France, DE = Germany, NZ = New Zealand, etc.).

A complete list of these codes is at
http://www.nwhealth.edu/it/employs/abbrev.html . "cen." or "c" means central,
and small letters, with or without ".", indicate the
part of the State, Province, or country, such as sCA = southern
California, nON = northern Ontario, sTX = southern Texas, etc. Rarely,
3-letter airport abbreviations are used, and I use "Sib" for Siberia, NN
for New England, and CS for the Canary Islands (rather than just "ES" to
distinguish them from mainland Spain; can't use CI because that's Cote
d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

Often, not every place crossed by a path is mentioned, so if you are between
two listed states or countries, the event may occur in your location; also, due
to remaining path errors, if you are in adjacent areas, you should also watch
since the actual path
might occur at your location. Unless otherwise specified in the notes,
the magnitude drop in case of an occultation is 1.0 or more.

Those especially in the Americas are reminded that the dates and times below
are U.T., and that local dates may be a day earlier. NOTE that the
times are U.T.; especially in the Americas, events often occur the
evening of the PREVIOUSLY-LISTED date, local time.

2004 Asteroid S t a r
Date U.T. Diam., R.A.(2000)Dec.
July h m m # Name km mag. h m o / Approx. location
16 1:20-:24 1561 Fricke 26 9.5 13 39.9 -10 41 sMX,GT,HN,NI,nVE,TT
18 4:22-:31 41 Daphne 174 11.9 21 12.5 +03 23 NF,NS,MA,VA,AL,TX,MX
19 4:11-:18 61 Danae 82 11.3 19 38.3 -41 29 nBR,sVE,HN,eMX,sTX,NM
20 4:26-:27 1404 Ajax 81 11.6 14 05.6 -32 34 MX-Hermos.; sw&ne NM
20 16:23-:33 3 Juno 233 7.6 18 55.9 -05 45 seSib,n&wCN,nIN,PK,SA
21 1:08-:19 773 Irmintraud 95 6.4 00 02.4 +08 57 GA,DZ,eES,wFR,swUK,IE
21 3:15-:19 235 Carolina 57 11.7 19 07.3 -32 26 BS,sFL,nCU?,sTX?,nMX
21 11:08-:25 481 Emita 116 11.4 21 04.4 -30 23 nNM,sAZ,nwMX,nAU-Q,NT
21 19:10-:24 856 Backlunda 52 9.5 18 43.4 -15 43 wChina,nwIN,SO,Angola
22 7:40-:61 494 Virtus 85 7.2 18 30.0 -33 03 BR,wPY,nAR,nCL,AU-seQ
23 7:53-:53 554 Peraga 95 9.5 11 29.3 +00 44 AU-sTas.;NZ-StewartI?
24 5:01-:06 1843 Jarmila 25 11.5 21 11.3 -05 09 sGA,MS,nTX,NM,AZ,cCA
25 3:49-:56 163 Erigone 72 11.6 17 13.6 -16 44 sNC,sSC,sGA,wFL,Mex.
25 10:01-:02 924 Toni 85 11.5 19 30.5 -13 39 nAR,sOK,n&wTX,nwMex.
25 10:07-:08 270 Anahita 50 11.3 19 31.6 -18 21 WY,seID,nUT,nNV,nCA
26 3:35-:37 419 Aurelia 129 9.1 14 11.6 -11 54 sMX,nGT,nBZ,JM,HT,DO
26 11:59-:106 1082 Pirola 43 7.2 22 50.8 -07 19 sBaja,AU-cQ.,sNT
26 16:53-:56 1685 Toro 12 9.7 01 15.5 +36 27 seSib.,sKorea,nwTW?
26 20:06-:08 419 Aurelia 129 9.6 14 12.6 -11 58 TR,Greece,sIT,Spain
27 0:26-:49 363 Padua 52 8.9 22 18.6 -20 16 nIR,IQ,nSA,SD,CM
27 22:11-:21 1719 Jens 18 7.8 21 27.5 -20 13 wCN,nIR,nIT,nFR,sUK
29 2:11-:06 418 Alemannia 34 11.4 17 35.0 -18 11 cFL,sMS,cLA,neTexas
29 17:10-:15 1832 Mrkos 30 8.4 01 27.9 +25 41 AU-sWA,NT;PNG,Micron.
30 11:01-:03 626 Notburga 100 11.4 21 59.2 -35 57 seCO,NM,AZ,nBaja,SDO?
31 9:29-:30 373 Melusina 95 11.5 05 28.8 +34 52 s.Mexico,cen.Florida
31 9:45-:47 304 Olga 67 10.2 20 20.3 -01 16 cen.Florida,c.Mexico
Aug.
2 2:03-:04 1945 Wesselink 12 5.5 02 24.8 +10 37 South Africa
3 12:00-:00 1519 Kajaani 26 8.8 19 03.1 -41 53 cen. Honshu, Japan
4 3:51-:57 2060 Chiron 166 13.8 19 30.4 -14 16 MR,GF?,GY,VE,CO,EC
4 8:35-:37 313 Chaldaea 96 12.2 19 39.1 -06 29 ON,WI,sMN,nCO,sNV,sCA
5 18:56-:62 36215 1999TG214 12 4.5 23 42.7 -14 33 Australia-nQ.,sNT,sWA
6 9:36-:36 756 Lilliana 71 10.0 06 19.4 +09 16 sSC,sGA,sAL,sMS,cLA
7 4:20-:40 838 Seraphina 59 11.7 17 50.0 -13 22 sQC,MI,sWI,IA,CO,cCA
7 9:07-:10 1625 The NORC 28 11.3 21 16.4 -18 52 nFL,sTX,nMX,s.Baja
7 9:54-:73 989 Schwassm. 12 7.4 21 32.2 +10 55 nChile,AU-n.Qld.,nNT
7 10:47-:48 632 Pyrrha 16 5.6 02 56.4 +18 01 nPeru,sEC,seColombia
13 11:23-:24 1685 Toro 12 7.9 04 49.7 +49 35 nBaja,AZ-nTUC,NM-sABQ

Notes for Individual Events:

Information for several other updated occultations from xxxxx to Aug.
7 are on Steve Preston's web site; they will be summarized in a
future message.

July 16: The star is SAO 158075, spectral type K0.

July 18: The mag. drop will be only 0.34, which we should be able
to find in video records, but that won't be noticable visually.
The n. limit is over Boston, New York City, Knoxville, & just n. of
Philadelphia, Baltimore, & DC; Austin, TX is just n. of it and San
Antonio is s. of it. Close to the s. limit are Norfolk, Charlotte,
Atlanta, Baton Rouge, & Corpus Christi.

July 19, Danae: The mag. drop will be 0.8.

July 20, Juno: The star is SAO 142809 = HIP 92918, sp. type G5.
The path also crosses the United Arab Emirates and se Iran.

July 21, Irmintraud: The star is 31 Piscium = ZC 3538 = HIP 186,
spectral type A5. Europeans are making a major effort to observe
this outstanding event, possibly the best of 2004. The updated path
is just over 3 path-widths east of Goffin's path plotted on pages 103
and 105 of the March issue of Sky and Telescope.

July 21, Backlunda: The star is SAO 161763, spectral type K0.

July 22: The star is SAO 210235, spectral type A3. The star is too
bright for UCAC2 and is not a HIP star, so its position may be in
error by more than the predicted amount.

July 23: The star is SAO 118889, spectral type A5.

July 24: The path also passes over sAL, nLA, and sNV. It passes
north of Jacksonville (FL), Shreveport, and Dallas-Ft.Worth, all of
which could have an occultation. Albuquerque is on the n. edge of
the updated path, Las Vegas is in the middle, Fresno is at the s.
edge, and San Jose, CA is at the n. edge (so the whole S.F. Bay
area has a chance for an occultation).

July 25, Anahita: The mag. drop will be 0.36, needing video.

July 26, Aurelia (1st): The star is SAO 158413 = HIP 69348, sp. type K5.

July 26, Pirola: The star is SAO 146347 = HIP 112813, sp. type K0.

July 26, Toro: This is a near-Earth asteroid in an orbit with a 5:8
resonance with Earth's orbit.

July 26, Aurelia (2nd): The star is SAO 158424, spectral type K0.
The updated path is about 2 path-widths south of the path shown on
p. 103 of the March issue of Sky and Telescope.

July 27, Padua: The star is SAO 191042, spectral type A3.

July 27, Jens: The star is ZC 3143 = SAO 190356 = HIP 105953, spec.
type K1III. The path also passes over nPK,AF,TR,sHR,nCH, and nIE.

July 29, Mrkos: The star is SAO 74737 = HIP 6830, spectral type F5.

Aug. 2: The star is xi Arietis = ZC 354 = HIP 11249, spec. type B5.

Aug. 3: The star is PPM 324717 (non-SAO), spectral type K0.

Aug. 4, Chiron: Chiron is probably a giant comet rather than a rocky
asteroid since previous observations show a coma and jets.

Aug. 5: The star is omega2 Aqr = SAO 165842 = HIP 116971, spectral
type B9.5V. It has a 9.9-mag. companion 4.8" away in PA 80 deg.
The updated path, still with uncertainty much larger than the narrow
path-width, is close to my path shown on p. 107 of the March issue of
Sky and Telescope.

Aug. 7, Seraphina: The path also passes over sON (just nw of Ottawa
and over the Bruce Peninsula), nwIL, NE (Omaha), sUT, & sNV just n. of
Las Vegas. Quebec City is at the s. limit while Milwaukee, Fresno, and
Omaha are near the center, and Denver and Santa Cruz are near the n.
limit.

Aug. 7, Schwassmannia: The star is SAO 107209 A = HIP 106337 A. It
has a 9.1-mag. companion 0.10" south of the primary that will be
occulted along a path north of that for the primary, but since the pair
will not be resolved, the occultation of the 2nd star will not be
observable. The primary star will appear to drop in brightness by 1.7
mag. to the mag. 9.1 of the secondary when it is occulted.

Aug. 7, Pyrrha: The star is rho3 Ari = ZC 433 = HIP 13702, sp. F5.

Aug. 13: See July 26, Toro. The star is SAO 39780 = HIP 22433,
spectral type A3. The path also crosses the west end of the Oklahoma
panhandle and, in brightening twilight, diagonally crosses Kansas from
sw to ne, passing just n. of Topeka. This prediction by Steve Preston
is not yet on his Web site but can instead be found at
http://iota.jhuapl.edu/0813_1685_2792.htm .

For more about these events, see Steve Preston's site at
http://www.asteroidoccultation.com for updated path maps and
other details. Also, see the asteroidal occultation section
of the main IOTA site at
http://www.lunar-occultations.com/io...ds/astrndx.htm for
annotated versions of E. Goffin's good finder charts for North
American events and links to sites covering other areas. For
Europe, see also L. Vasta & J. Manek's site at
http://mpocc.astro.cz/mp .

I just list the events in the table above; see the Web sites for
the updated maps to see the closest approach time for your
location, and more accurate coordinates of the star and its
designation. You must display this message with a fixed-space
font such as Courier for the columns of the table to line up.
The U.T. time range is given, with only the minutes of the
hour given for the end time (subtract 60 and add 1 to the hour
for end minutes greater than 59).

Good luck with YOUR observations of occultations.

David Dunham, 2004 July 15, 5h UT