Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
IAUC 5965: Occn BY (2060)
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Circular No. 5965
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
Postal Address: Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Telephone 617-495-7244/7440/7444 (for emergency use only)
TWX 710-320-6842 ASTROGRAM CAM EASYLINK 62794505
MARSDEN@CFA or GREEN@CFA (.SPAN, .BITNET or .HARVARD.EDU)
OCCULTATION BY (2060) CHIRON
J. L. Elliot, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
Lowell Observatory; E. W. Dunham, Ames Research Center, NASA; and
C. B. Olkin, MIT, report on the prediction and successful Kuiper
Airborne Observatory (KAO) observation of the Mar. 9 occultation of
the 11.9-mag star Ch08 (Bus et al., A.J., in press) by (2060)
Chiron: "CCD-strip-scan observations were made by C. Ford (SETI
Institute) and R. P. S. Stone (Lick Observatory) using the Crossley
telescope at Lick. These data were reduced by S. W. McDonald, R. M.
Bandyopadhyay, and their colleagues at MIT. The KAO optical light
curve shows one integration interval of 0.5 s (at 23h28m55s UT,
when the KAO was near Recife) to have a drop of about 60 percent,
with lesser drops in several neighboring intervals on either side.
This is similar in character to the occultation light curve for Ch02
obtained from Palomar on 1993 Nov. 7 (IAUC 5898). Simultaneous K-
band observations were made but have not been reduced yet. The
occulting object was almost certainly some structure within the coma
near the nucleus rather than the nucleus itself. Other members of
the KAO observing team were D. K. Gilmore, D. M. Rank, and P. Temi
(University of California at Santa Cruz and Lick Observatory); D.
Lazzaro (Observatorio Nacional) participated as Brazil's primary
scientific representative."
W. B. Hubbard, University of Arizona, writes: "Ground-based
observations of the Mar. 9 occultation by Chiron were attempted in
Brazil at the Pico dos Dias Observatory, Itajuba, by H. Reitsema
(Ball Aerospace), A. Barucci (Paris Observatory), and J. Barroso
(Observatorio Nacional), and by three mobile teams from MIT, Lowell
Observatory, and the University of Arizona, working in collaboration
with the Observatorio Nacional and the Paris Observatory (S. J. Bus,
D. F. Lopes, M. Buie, B. Sicardy, R. Marcialis, D. W. Foryta), but
no data were gathered due to clouds. At the South African
Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland, conditions were photometric,
and D. Kurtz (University of Cape Town) observed the occultation in
Johnson V with the 0.5-m telescope, recording a single brief and
deep event at about 23h23m45s UTC. The event lasted <0.5 s, with a
maximum stellar signal drop of about 75 percent; it resembles the
unresolved dips detected during the 1993 Nov. 7 Chiron occultation
(IAUC 5898) and may be associated with an opaque feature a few km
wide but extending some hundreds of km from the nucleus."
1994 April 5 (5965) Daniel W. E. Green
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