26 December 2014

I couple of weeks ago I met Peter and he gave me a copy of the Observer's Handbook for 2015. As soon as I got it home I checked the pages for eclipses and occultations. There is a grazing occultation of 58 Leonis, ZC1599, on 10Oct2015 that looked from the tiny map provided like it might be a local graze.

http://www.iota.timerson.net graphic

I have done some research on it and verified that is indeed a local graze. The graze centerline will pass close by the Metro North train stations at Glenwood and Mamaroneck, Westchester County, NY.

http://www.iota.timerson.net graphic

Checking the limp profile I found that the best place to observe from would be at -1.5km from the centerline.

Occult4 graphic

Occult4 graphic

And this is what I should see, yellow being visible and black hidden, blue the star is visible before and after the graze. The time scale is in seconds.

I checked the Metro North train schedule and there would be one train returning from Glenwood after the graze is over so that location would be usable.

I checked where I would have to be in that area to be -1.5km from the graze centerline and determined that it would be half way between the Glenwood and Greystone Metro North stations, about 0.75mi from each.

http://www.iota.timerson.net graphic

Then I started researching where the star and Moon would be at that time. All the reference material says the graze will occurr at 10Jan2015 0405 UT which translates to 10Jan2015 00005 EST. When I plug that into my planetarium software the Moon is nowhere near 58 Leonis. By playing with the date and time I found that the graze will happen here around 9Jan2015 2240 EST.

The planetarium says the Moon will only be 17°: above the eastern horizon at the time the graze starts which didn't sound too bad until I realized that I would likely be looking into a mountain.

SkySafari Plus graphicI was thinking I would be looking across the Hudson river but then figured the rising Moon would be in the east. Since I would be near sea level and rivers cut down through the surrounding terrain so there is likely to be higher ground to the east of me and there are indeed some tall mountains along the river like at Stomr King and Breakneck Ridge. So I went to Google Street View to get an idea of what the area looks like and it is not promising.

http://www.iota.timerson.net graphic

Google Maps graphics

So I checked out Mamaroneck. Things look a lot more promising there.

http://www.iota.timerson.net graphic

Google Maps graphic

And by walking about 0.75mi SE of the train station the sky is even more open. So it looks like I will be going to Mamaroneck…if the weather cooperates.