From approximately the same areas, the Moon will occult some stars of the Hyades four nights earlier.

1. Pedro Sada's updated path for occultation of 8.5-mag. SAO 96684 by the 154km asteroid (85) Io is now expected to cross northwestern Mexico, central Texas (Big Bend to Houston; San Antonio and Austin are in the updated path), s. Louisiana (New Orleans, Baton Rouge), the Gulf coast, and n. Florida (Pensacola & Jacksonville, and Valdosta, GA). These predictions are based on accurate observations made last year, but none have been made since January, so the path could be in error by at least a path-width. So observers as far north as El Paso, Dallas, Shreveport, Jackson (MS), and Montgomery (AL) have some chance [but probably not as far north as Tucson or Atlanta], or as far south as Corpus Cristi and Orlando have a reasonable chance. The occultation will take place within 40 seconds of 10:54 U.T. of September 1 (5:54 am CDT or 6:54 am EDT) for all observers. A central occultation is expected to last 5 seconds with a 5-magnitude drop. The star is just north of the Gemini-Canis Minor border at J2000 RA 7h 15m 08.6s, Dec +12 deg. 45' 52", about 0.6 deg. north of a 6th-mag. star and 2.5 deg. west- northwest of 5th-mag. 1 Canis Minoris. A finder chart can be found in the asteroidal occultation section of http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota and at the top of that page, you can click on a link to Pedro Sada's site that shows the updated path and also gives a list of updated central line coordinates.

2. Many occultations by the new near-Earth asteroid 2000 QW7. If the orbit can be updated with radar observations, it actually might be possible to predict occultations by this rather small asteroid to an accuracy of 1-2 path-widths. But so far, path predictions are not available (they will be posted in the asteroidal occultation section of the IOTA Web site given above soon after they become available, and possibly sooner at iota.jhuapl.edu). Ephemerides, probably even topocentric ones, can be found elsewhere on the Web, possibly starting from www.skypub.com and these can be used to locate the asteroid at the times of appulses predicted by David Herald given below:

 2000     U.T.   Star  Mag  Dist     Star                
mo day   h   m    mag drop    "    PPM No.                
Aug 31   7 42.3   9.6  3.6 392.7   207281                
Aug 31   8 43.8   9.5  3.8 191.5   207309                
                                                         
Aug 31   9  4.6   9.5  3.8 319.8   207318                
Aug 31   9 29.1   9.5  3.8  66.8   207328                
Aug 31  10 58.4   9.3  4.0 191.7   207364                
Aug 31  16 55.6   9.6  3.7 189.3   207500                
Aug 31  21 34.6   9.1  4.2 349.7   207595                
                                                         
Sep 01   0  2.2   8.9  4.5 236.6   207647                
Sep 01   3 58.5   9.6  3.8  14.3   207734                
Sep 01   4 49.0   9.6  3.8  94.1   207749                
Sep 01   6 56.5   9.5  3.9 234.2   207791                
Sep 01   7 41.0   9.4  4.0 177.1   207817                
                                                         
Sep 01  11 16.2   9.5  4.0  43.1   207904                
Sep 01  14 25.2   9.6  3.9 460.3   207976                
Sep 01  18 50.8   9.5  4.0 364.7   208070                
Sep 01  20  3.2   8.9  4.6 320.3   208100                
Sep 01  20 51.8   9.6  3.9 188.8   208122                
                                                         
Sep 01  21  8.6   9.5  4.0  45.7   208130                
Sep 01  21 43.3   9.6  3.9 214.8   208141                
Sep 01  23 36.9   9.5  4.1  56.4   208182                
Sep 01  17 26.8  10.1  3.4 416.6   709738                
Sep 01  18 38.3   9.9  3.6 107.3   709743                
                                                         
Sep 02   0 18.5   9.6  4.0 389.3   208196                
Sep 02   0 10.9   9.8  3.8  38.0   709761                
Sep 02   4 17.3   8.4  5.2  93.1   181797                
Sep 02   4 51.6   8.9  4.7 496.5   181802                
Sep 02   5 24.9   9.6  4.0  87.6   181817                
                                                         
Sep 02   7  5.2   9.6  4.0 282.9   181855                
Sep 02  11 40.8  10.5  3.3 242.3   181961                
Sep 02  13 31.8   9.8  3.9 126.6   181998                
Sep 03   0 58.9   9.5  4.3 333.3   182276                

Sorry, I don't have an easy way to append the star's J2000 RA & Dec. Even a central occultation will be very brief, only a few tenths of a second.

3. September 10th (Sat. evening, Sept. 9th, EDT) occultation of 8.5-mag. SAO 91954 = HIP 2559 by the 142km asteroid (111) Ate will be visible from North America somewhere east of the Appalachian Mountains (probably North Carolina/Virginia; the time will be 0h 49m U.T. or 8:49 pm EDT of Aug. 31st). Until now, this has been considered just a European event (nominal path crossing Ireland, U.K. at 0h 42m UT, Denmark, Estonia, St. Petersburg at 0h 39m UT), but it will also be visible from somewhere along the eastern U.S.A. Since the asteroid is near opposition, there is a good chance that we will obtain a good astrometric update for this event, good enough to make it worthwhile to travel towards the central line (I am organizing an expedition from the Washington, DC area - let me know if you would be interested in joining this effort). A 15-second occultation is expected with a 3.5-mag. drop. The 87% sunlit waxing Moon will be 67 deg. away. The star is at J2000 RA 0h 32m 31.3s, Dec +10 deg. 29' 12", in Pisces about halfway from gamma Pegasi (Algenib) to delta Piscium (about 6 deg. southeast of Algenib), 1.1 deg. east and a little north of a 6th-mag. star, and half a deg. northwest of a 7th-mag. star. A bare (no annotations) finder chart can be found on the European site link given at the top of the asteroidal occultation page of the main IOTA Web site given above. In a few days, this event will be added to the table on the main site, with an annotated finder chart. And of course I hope to be able to distribute an update prediction.

4. The good passage of the Moon through the Praesepe (Beehive = M44) cluster the morning of August 27th was successfully observed from Florida. But other good passages are coming up, as described below. The approximate region of visibility of these events will be the nighttime parts of the region of visibility of the occultation of the brightest member, 6.3-mag. epsilon Cancri = ZC 1299 that will be posted on the main IOTA site. But the cluster is large enough that many stars will also be occulted for areas a Moon radius outside of this region of visibility.

• Sep. 23, Moon 24% waning, Japan and nearby areas of the Far East. A good northern-limit dark-limb graze of epsilon Cancri will be visible from southern Hokkaido, and a graze of 6.8-mag. ZC 1303, also successfully observed in Fla. on Aug. 27, should be visible farther south in Japan.
• Oct. 21, Moon 40% waning, Europe. A good northern-limit dark-limb graze of epsilon Cancri will be visible from Ireland, central U.K., southern Sweden, and southern Finland, with grazes of some 7th-mag. stars such as ZC 1303 being visible farther south.
• Nov. 17, Moon 65% waning, eastern North America. The epsilon Cancri northern limit is too far north; the southern limit crosses southern Virginia, but the graze will not be observable since it will occur on the sunlit side of the Moon.

From approximately the same areas, the Moon will occult some stars of the Hyades four nights earlier, including the bright delta Tauri stars for some observers. The Hyades passage, and a graze of a 6.9- mag. star, was successfully observed from Nags Head, North Carolina, on August 23.

David Dunham, IOTA, 2000 August 31 am

Joan and David Dunham
7006 Megan Lane
Greenbelt, MD 20770
(301) 474-4722
dunham@erols.com

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