2010-02-14 Pluto occultation

From SwRI

Overview

Bruno Sicardy is leading an effort to observe this event from many sites in Europe. Please see his web page here: http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/bruno-sicardy/14_feb_10/

Contents 1 Overview 2 Contacts 3 PHOT Observers 4 Paris-Meudon and European Observers 5 Available Instruments 6 Site Summary 7 Photometry and SNR 8 Predictions 8.1 Star Prediction Summary 8.2 Ephemeris Correction Summary 8.3 Globes and Ground Tracks 9 Finding Charts 10 Test Stars and Setup Stars 10.1 Wolfgang Beisker 10.2 Larry Wasserman 10.3 Leslie Young 11 Maps 12 Schedule 13 PHOT packing list 14 Boulder Cameras 14.1 MicroMax 14.2 PhotonMax 15 General Guidelines 16 Links

Contacts

• List of contacts are here: Contacts

PHOT Observers

Definitely available

• Cathy Olkin (prefers Switzerland)
• Harold Reitsema (prefers France)
• Eliot Young
• Leslie Young (prefers France)
• Larry Wasserman

Interested, uncommitted

Definitely unavailable

• Marc Buie
• Henry Roe
• Peter Tamblyn
• John Spencer
• Amanda Gulbis
• Dick French
• Jeff Regester
• John Stansberry

Contacted, not yet heard from

• Bob Howell
• Kevin Shoemaker

Not yet contacted

• Bobby Bus
• Bob Millis

Paris-Meudon and European Observers

Definitely available

• Bruno Sicardy (prefers Catania)
• Thomas Widemann (Cagliari or Vienna)
• François Colas
• Jean Lecacheux
• Jean-Eudes Arlot (prefers Castel Gandolfo)
• Françoise Roques
• Olivier Mousis
• Mirel Birlan

Switzerland :

• Raoul Behrend (prefers St Luc)
• Frédéric Malman (St Luc)
• Stefano Sposett

Italy/Vatican :

• P. David Brown S.J.
• Claudio Costa

Germany :

• Wolfgang Beisker
• Claus-Peter Heidmann

Spain :

• Jose-Luis Ortiz (Calar Alto)
• Carles Schnabel (Baleares)
• Ricard Casas (Sabadell)

==

Available Instruments

In the US, we have carnets already for the following cameras:

• Ansel (MicroMax). Can mount into 2"eyepiece holder. Will need to be pumped down.
• Walker (MicroMax).Can mount into 2"eyepiece holder.Will need to be pumped down.
• Eadweard (PhotonMax). Will probably need a mounting plate.
• Doc (PhotonMax).Will probably need a mounting plate.
• Gjon (PhotonMax). Will need work on front-mounting screws.Will probably need a mounting plate.

PhotonMax cameras are mounted with mounting plates. The front faces come off, as seen here: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/projects/PHOT/20060130_opticslab/P1010073.JPG. The drawings are here: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/projects/PHOT/drawings/. We have plates of different sizes that attach to the front of the camera and have the right holes drilled to match a bolt pattern.

Meudon has 5 EMCCD cameras, 2 IR cameras, and several WATEC 120N+.

IOTA-ES (Germany) up to 5 Iota Occultation Cameras, QHY6 cameras, Watecs etc.

Site Summary

Vatican
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Castel Gandolfo	0.61	?	?	Arlot? Costa?
Italy
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Catania Obs, Sicily	.91m, .8m (brand new), .61m	Yes	Meudon cams + aperture photometer?	B. Sicardy, F. Roques	-
Teramo	.72m (?)	Not possible, elevation too low.	Meudon cams	Olivier Mousis, Daniel Cordier, Philippe Rousselot	Near l'Aquila's 2009 Earthquake site. Ideally situated in the Appenins range as a base for mobile stations.
Mousis Portable	0.35	N/A	Meudon cams	O. Mousis, D. Cordier, Ph. Rousselot	Based in Teramo
Beisker Portable	0.279	N/A	QHY6 + IOTA	Wolfgang Beisker	Based somwhere in Italy/Suisse according to weather conditions
Costa Portable	0.35	N/A	?	Claudio Costa in contact/coordination with amateurs in Italy
Loiano, 35 km south of Bologna	1.52, .6	Yes	Wasserman	PHOT-Eadweard	Complementary site, distant from others
Arectri, near Firenze	no info on web page	Tozzi contacted by B. Sicardy Jan 17: old 37cm refractor not usable, but 3 C14 available there	?	?	?
Capodimonte, near Naples, Italy	1.51, 0.6	Yes	Olkin	PHOT-Gjon	Altitude limits uncertain
Campo Imperatore	1.08	?	SWIRCAM (1.1 - 2.5 μm ), facility instr.	?	property of Obs. Pulkovo
Cagliari, Sardinia	.42	Prof. Nicolò D'Amico and Ignazio Porceddu contacted, allocation OK. Marco Massa and amateur group also contacted and will participate.	Meudon camera (e.g. Watec)	Inappropriate light pollution at SE	Facility instrument of INAF's Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari (OAC). Oil refinery in SE direction.
Max Valier (Bolzano)	0.8	Not possible due to elevation (min. 19 deg)	?
Val d'Aosta	0.8, 0.4, 0.25, 0.25, 0.12	contact: A. Carbognani. Telescopes can be pointed to 7.5 deg. elev.. We are welcome to use that site	?
Switzerland
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Jungfraujoch	.76	LIDAR at the Cass focus, but Valentin Simeonov might agree to help us put a camera at the Cass focus. Pluto's azimuth at 135-deg appears to miss the Monch and Jungfrau. We'll need the adapter plate pattern from Marcel Bartlome	?	?	Lidar may prevent other instruments
Gornergrat	1.5	No chance. S. dome has a submm scope, and the 1.5-m in the N. dome no longer there.	Facility?
St Luc	0.6m	Yes	PHOT-Walker	Reitsema, Behrend, Malman	Snout
Bellinzona	0.4m	Sposetti contacted		Sposetti
Falera	0.9m	Yes		Cathy, Larry?
Jura	0.61
Monte Generoso	0.61	No	-	-	Closed until March 19
Zimmerwald	1.0
Geneva	0.7
Austria
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Vienna	.51, .68, .80
Leopold Figl	0.6, 1.5	Werner W. Zeilinger contacted. Time allocated including Feb.12-13.	PHOT-Ansel	EYoung	Was Widemann w/ possibly Watec
France
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Haute Provence	.80 (1.93?)	yes for .80	PHOT-Doc	LYoung	Mount TBD
Puimichel	1.0	not yet contacted	?	?	1 hour from OHP, amateur.
Pic du Midi	.55,.6,1.06,2	?	?
Nice
Saint Veran (AstroQueyra)	.62	Difficult, no set-up		a team is going at St Veran on Saturday night (Feb. 13) for another run
Czech Republic
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Ondřejov	0.65, 2	?	?
Bulgaria
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Rozhen	2, 0.6	2m available with aperture photometer, 0.6m available for Meudon IR camera
Belogradchik	0.6	available, with aperture photometer
Croatia
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Hvar	1.0
Slovenia
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Crni Vrh	0.6				EU member, Schengen
Greece
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Skinakas, Crete	1.1	No	n/a	n/a	1.3m out of service (rewiring)
Skinakas, Crete	0.6	Capella Obs. contacted by Bruno Jan 21	n/a	0.6m out of service (snow)
Chelmos, Greece	2.3	Access issues (snow)	Facility SITe 1K x 1K CCD with UBVRI, 1 Hz	Facility	Use if only Greece looks clear?
Kryoneri, Greece	1.2	n/a	n/a	n/a	Drive problems - don't use
Spain
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Calar Alto			???	JL Ortiz
Baleares			???	Carles Schnabel
Sabadell			???	Ricard Casas
Pico Veleta		No	???		Too low
Germany
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
VSW Munich	0.8m	YES	IOC or QHY6 tbd	CPHeidmann
Hoher List	0.6m 0.35	YES	WATEC Cameras, GPS time	Geffert, Brednet
Finland
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Nyrölä Observatory	0.4m Meade	To be contacted	ST-8XE CCD	Sirius ry
Tunisia
Site	Aperture	Time Allocated	Instrumentation	Observers	Notes
Observatoire Astronomique Néapolis du Club Jeunes Sciences de Nabeul	?	Thomas emailed, Jan 31		No telescope beyond suburban Tunis. A C14 and C11 owned by the weather service in Tunis would require heavy paperwork to be made available

Photometry and SNR

Predictions

Star Prediction Summary

With no proper motions applied to the catalog stars, the dec offsets are all similar.

Source                    RA            Dec              dra     ddec errx erry
------------------------ -------------- -------------   ----- ------- ---- ----
Brazil                    18:19:14.3847 -18:16:42.323       0       0   35   35
Lowell                    18:19:14.3779 -18:16:42.320     -97       3   62   34
Tycho-2-noPM              18:19:14.3774 -18:16:42.379    -103     -56  104  146
PPMX-noPM                 18:19:14.3848 -18:16:42.331       1      -8   15   19
UCAC3-noPM                18:19:14.3774 -18:16:42.338    -103     -15   16   16
2MASS-noPM                18:19:14.3848 -18:16:42.310       1      13   60   60
------------------------------------------------

Ephemeris Correction Summary

Globes and Ground Tracks

Finding Charts

There is a good comparison star 1.9464 arcmin (117 arcsec) away (18 19 06.181, -18 16 45.34) is a conparison star with I=10.255, J=8.568, K=7.135. DENIS3 J181906.1-181645

Finder chart with Leopold Figl FOV, at f8.3, with PhotoMax and MicroMax

Finder chart with I mags plotted over Marc Buie's color (B,V,890 nm) image from Lowell, with the FOV for OHP, Leopold Figl (f8/3, photonmax), and Castel Gondolfo.

Finder chart with I mags plotted over DENIS I image, with the FOV for OHP, Leopold Figl, and Castel Gondolfo.

Finder chart with I mags plotted over DENIS I image, with the FOV for OHP, Leopold Figl, and Castel Gondolfo, flipped from sky right.

Test Stars and Setup Stars

Wolfgang Beisker

Wolfgang Beisker writes "Dear all, I have selected some test stars with (almost) same altitude, azimuth, magnitude and color as the star to be occulted. This may be useful for testing the event. Because most (or all?) of you do not want to observe at 4h50 in the morning, the stars have been selected, that they can be observed in the first half of the night. Keep in mind to compensate the observation time for the date you observe. Please have a look at http://www.iota-es.de/pluto-test.html"

Leslie Young: I've copied his information here, and added Star Numbers - WB for Wolfgan Beisker'

Test Stars with same altitude, azimuth, magnitude and color In order to test equipment, telescope, positioning etc. A few test stars have been selected. The stars have for certain times the same altitude, azimuth, magnitude and color as the star to be occulted. In the following table the observing time, UCAC number, RA, Dec, spectral type UCAC magnitude, J, H, and K mag are given.

The first 3 stars are easy to find, they are only a little more than 1 degree away from Sirius. For a rough check for these observing time, Sirius may be a good choice, if anybody wants to see, what the horizon is etc.

NUM  m/d  hh_mm UCAC #   RA          Dec         SpT UCACmag Jmag  Hmag  Kmag 
WB1  1/30 18h20 25023103 06:49:39.18 -17:30:10.9 M6  10.60   7.346 6.378 6.085 
WB2  1/30 18h20 24775642 06:45:47,49 -18:02:39.0 M2  10.80   7.883 6.948 6.652 
WB3  1/30 18h20 24775522 06:45;22.30 -18:05:40.3 M0  10.32   7.720 6.889 6.629 
WB4  1/30 20h00 24572423 08:30:38.22 -18:34:07.5 M0  10.23   7.656 6.861 6.580 
WB5  1/30 20h00 24819457 08:34:37.87 -18:08:51.6 M0  10.92   7.728 6.835 6.518 
WB6  1/30 20h00 24572586 08:31:21.43 -18:49:15.9 M0  10.33   7.305 6.464 6.202 
WB7  1/30 23h15 24839049 11:46:15    -18:13:18   M0  10.36   8.059 7.017 7.264  

The same altitude and azimuth is valid on the 15^th of January 1h later and on the 14^th of February 1h earlier.

The times are only approximate times for the same altitude and azimuth, calculate it exact for your circumstances.

The data have been extracted from UCAC2 catalog as well as from 2MASS catalog.

Larry Wasserman

From: "Lawrence H. Wasserman" <lhw@lowell.edu> Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:00:35 -0700

Leslie --

If you have a computer controlled telescope to work with and you're not sure of its pointing accuracy, here is a list of stars which more-or-less decrease in brightness and get progressively closer to the target and with which you can presumably "walk" to the target.

Leslie Young: I've copied his information here, and added Star Numbers - LW for Larry Wasserman'

NUM  PPM       V         RA         Dec       Dist (deg)                                  SAO
LW1  168779    0.80   19:50:47.4  +08:52:10     35.32      (Altair)
LW2  164476    2.80   17:43:28.3  +04:34:04     24.49
LW3  201263    3.30   17:59:01.6  -09:46:26      9.81
LW4  234600    4.70   18:29:11.9  -14:33:57      4.41
LW5  234421    5.90   18:21:23.0  -18:51:36      0.77               161376
LW6  234323    7.10   18:18:22.7  -18:28:32      0.28               161294
LW7  Occln Star       18:19:14.4  -18:16:42.3

Here are finder charts from Aladin previewer for selected stars

Finder chart for LW5 (N up, East left)

Finder chart for LW6 (N up, East left)

Leslie Young

Here are bright stars roughly every 1/2 hour of RA or closer, and similar declinations to the occulted star, for practicing pointing all night long.

I am adding SAO numbers for selected stars because that is what we need for pointing (Cathy).

NUM  RA_J2000   Dec_J2000 HR    Vmag
LY01 06:45:08.9 -16:42:58 2491 -1.49
LY02 07:22:13.5 -19:01:00 2812  4.96 
LY03 07:59:52.0 -18:23:57 3131  4.61 
LY04 08:09:01.6 -19:14:42 3192  4.40 
LY05 08:21:54.6 -17:35:11 3281  5.75 
LY06 08:55:12.4 -18:14:29 3554  5.75 	 
LY07 09:09:04.3 -18:19:43 3638  5.73 
LY08 09:54:52.2 -19:00:34 3923  4.94 
LY09 10:04:02.9 -18:06:06 3963  5.86
LY10 10:46:52.0 -17:17:48 4214  5.42	
LY11 10:59:46.5 -18:17:56 4287  4.08 
LY12 11:24:52.9 -17:41:02 4405  4.08 
LY13 11:44:45.8 -18:21:03 4514  4.73 
LY14 12:15:48.4 -17:32:31 4662  2.59
LY15 12:29:51.9 -16:30:56 4757  2.95
LY16 13:18:24.3 -18:18:41 5019  4.74 
LY17 13:49:52.3 -18:08:03 5196  4.97 
LY18 14:15:24.1 -18:12:03 5332  5.43
LY19 14:18:38.3 -18:42:58 5355  5.90  158481
LY19a 15:12:13  -19:47:31 5652  4.54  159090
LY20 16:05:26.2 -19:48:20 5984  2.62  159682
LY21 16:27:01.4 -18:27:23 6118  4.42
LY22 16:41:34.4 -17:44:32 6196  4.96  160046
LY23 17:08:14.9 -17:36:33 6365  5.99  160305
LY24 18:17:11.6 -17:22:26 6838  5.75

Here are finder charts from Aladin previewer for selected stars

Finder chart for LY19 (N up, East left)	Finder chart for LY20 (N up, East left)	Finder chart for LY22 (N up, East left)	Finder chart for LY23 (N up, East left)
Finder chart for LY24 (N up, East left)

Maps

• Google map
• Bruno's longitude-latitude map The longitude-latitude map gives the iso-elevation lines for the Sun (limits of gray zones), the iso-elevation lines for Pluto (in green), the path of center line and half-light line (blue solid lines), and the 1% drop stellar line (in blue dotted), marking the practical limit of detection of the occultation. Enlargement

Schedule

Pluto2010-02-14 Schedule

PHOT packing list

Pluto2010-02-14 PHOT packing list

Boulder Cameras

Picture of both cameras and the electronics box http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/projects/PHOT/20060130_opticslab/P1010064.JPG

Manuals http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/projects/PHOT/manuals/

MicroMax

The MicroMax camera head (rectangular camera head, C-Mount) weighs 7.25 pounds and is 4.63 inches x 4.63 inchesx 7.05 inches. The focal plane 0.690 inches from front face, with the center of mass is 4.24 inches from front face.

The MicroMax electronics box (ST-133A) is 10 pounds, 8.75 inch high by 5.25 inch wide by 13.63 inch long.

The MicroMax acquisition laptop weighs 5 pounds.

The electronics box to camera cable is 125.5 inches long.

Photos of MicroMax or Micromax mounts. The holes on the optics bench are spaced by 1 inch.

 dark = dark0 * exp( (T - T0)/S)
              Walker     Ansel
T0            -45 C       -45 C
dark0         1.7 e/s     3.7 e/s
S             4.8 C       5.9 C

MicroMax Camera Head	MicroMax with snout	MicroMax with snout in Crossley 2-inch holder	MicroMax - Sommers Bausch Observatory adapter
MicroMax AAT plate	Sommers Bausch Observatory adapter on AAT plate	MicroMax camera in Sommers Bausch Observatory adapter on AAT plate	MicroMax drawing

PhotonMax

Photos of PhotonMax or PhotonMax mounts. The holes on the optics bench are spaced by 1 inch.

PhotonMax camera head and Palomar200in mount	PhotonMax's Palomar200in mount	PhotonMax's Boyden Observatory mount	PhotonMax's Kitt Peak mount
PhotonMax's SAAO mount	PhotonMax's San Pedro Martir mount	PhotonMax drawing	PhotonMax drawing #2

General Guidelines

Links

• Translation of phrases and URLs http://www.google.com/translate_t?sl=it&tl=en&hl=en&text=specola&source=dictionary#

• Bruno's page http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/perso/bruno-sicardy/14_feb_10/

• Clickable weather statistics http://en.allmetsat.com/climate/europe.php

• http://www.eso.org/~ndelmott/ObsSites/obs_sites_zoom.html

• Weatherforecast for Italy link: http://www.meteoam.it/