Observer's Guide 2012 graphic
Observer's Guide 2012 graphic
Observer's Guide 2012 graphic
I checked on the IOTA web page yesterday and downloaded the bright star occultation predictions for NYC for the year and reviewed it on the way out to hacking and found that there are few good events for us this year. I don't remember seeing any really bright stars listed but for most of the events the Moon is greater than 25% illuminated. One event I did mark off as of possible interest had a note saying that the event would be a graze 18km to the north of NYC which it turns out is defined at the east side of 6 Ave between 37 and 37 Streets. It was #16 that I had identified.
I downloaded Occult and tried to figure it out but I have forgotten a lot of the little I used to know about the program. Poking around on the IOTA site I found a site that was supposed to have interactive maps but they are all static and don't have this event. I found Derek Breit's site which has some detailed maps but not for this event. He will take requests so I emailed him expressing my interest and very shortly got an email back pointing me to a page that had listings of centerline locations across the country and a limb map which I used to get out of Occult, but his is much more detailed.
Breit Ideas graphic
Derek's sent me a link to his page with an interactive map. I had hoped to be able to observe from TotL with Peter or maybe from The Cloisters if I needed to be closer to the centerline. Plugging in the most favorable offset from the centerline I found that I needed to be ~0.5km away so that means I am going to have to go to Westchester. [3Feb12 To get a graze position south of the graze centerline you need to enter a + value for one of the lines. I then add a big - value for the other line to get it out of the way so there is no confusion.]
Breit Ideas graphic
Breit Ideas graphic
My initial thought was that I would take the train to Riverdale and observe from the north end of the MTA parking lot but then realized that I was using the wrong offset line. For a northern limb graze your offset is a minus value and that line is north of the graze centerline. So recalculating it looks like I need to go to Ludlow and then walk south to a school ballfield.
Breit Ideas graphic
Google Maps graphic
This doesn't look like a great location but in the satellite image I don't see any light pole shadows and the Moon will be up around 50° so trees or buildings getting in the way shouldn't be a problem.
Sky Safari graphic
[3Feb12 Derek subsequently advised me that the best location would be 0.55 km S of the centerline which puts me back in the Riverdale parking lot but at a choke point for traffic.]
For what it's worth, dryday.com is predicting that this event will fall during a dry period.
dryday.com graphic
And Peter isn't available so I am on my own on this one.
