JAY PASSACHOFF, WILLIAMS COLLEGE, MASSACHUSSETS. USA JULIO 20 DEL 2002
I just heard from our team in Putre, at 11,500 feet above Arica, andthey were unable to find the field of view in the brightly moonlit skyin spite of clear weather. They called on an Iridium satellite phone.We tried to reach our second team (Marc Buie of Lowell and Oscar Saaof CTIO), in Iquique, but have not been able to contact them.
Mark Kidger at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife with a 1.5-m (K) andan 0.8-m telescope (R) had a good series of observations that did notshow any occultation. Mark wrote: "Observations were carried out atTeide after the clouds suddenly cleared at the last minute. Novariation was seen either in R with the 82-cm nor in K with the 1.5-m.�� "A report has also como in from MPC station 213 (Catalonia) of aprobablenegative." The sky also cleared on La Palma after bad cloudiness earlier in thenight. Pablo Perez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) at the 2.5-mIsaac Newton Telescope and Roeland Van Malderen, Geert Davignon, andKatrien Uytterhoeven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) atObservatory Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma with a 1.2-m telescopehave data sets through the time of occultation that have to be reduced(1:32-1:52 with 5 s time resolution for the Belgian astronomers).� ����We are downloading the INT data, 278 ir frames, for reduction hereat Williams College (David Ticehurst is looking at it now here);perhaps others will reduce it as well.� The Belgian team havephotometric Geneva-system observations that they will reduce at homein their normal way. At Cerro Tololo, the 4-m couldn't open. Ted Dunham used the 24"(0.6-m) telescope through clouds and got several short intervals, sothose data might help establish whether there was an occultation atall but wouldn't provide much else. Jim Elliot wrote from Las Campanas (Magellan) that they couldn't openbecause of high winds. Francoise Roques wrote from La Silla that in spite of high winds theycould open the dome but she did not see an occultation after1:49. Since the prediction was for 1:44 I don'tunderstand. Apparently, it was too cloudy before 1:49. I am trying toget a clarification from her; at the moment, e-mail to her doesn't gothrough. She writes: "the sky was cloudy, however, we've got databetween 1:49 and 2:04 with very fluctuating sigmal. Nothing lookinglike a disapearrance of P126A during this time interval." She reportsthat the VLT was not able to observe. Francoise: Please clarify the reason for the time of yourobservations. Was it cloudy at 1:44, the predicted time for your site?Is that why you didn't start until 1:49 UT? Our team from Williams College (Steve Souza, David Ticehurst, and JayPasachoff) was unable to get our equipment through to Aruba. Aruba,however, was on the same path track as the Canaries, so we now knowthat nothing would have been seen. I do not know of anybody who has seen the occultation. I hope Brunohad good luck with it from Ecuador.� At the moment, we don't knowwhere the path actually went. Jay Pasachoff 2 pmIt turns out that our University e-mail was off line for the past 14hours.� Here are the additional comments that have come in sincemidnight last night:
DESDE ITAJUBA, BRAZIL
From Stefan Renner ([email protected]) from Itajuba, Brazil:Data between two clouds around 1h52 and 2h01 UT.The IOTA camera didn't work (problem of adjustment of REF), so weobservedwith the CCD of the two telescopes. Exposure times 2 and 5 s.[note from JMP: The prediction was for 1h42m, so the time ofobservation did not include the predicted time, apparently because ofclouds.]
DESDE M�RIDA, VENEZUELA
From Orlando Naranjo, Merida, Venezuela[email protected]Dear people,We try to use 1-m reflector and 0.65 cm for occultation of P126. Itwas cloudy and have some problems with one camera at refractor. At thetelescopes were: Patricia Rosenzweig, Wolfgang Beisker, Luis Porras,Hugo Calderon, Orlando Naranjo and two night assistants: UbaldoSanchez y Gregory Rojas.� Hope next time pluto let us see it occultation by any means.
DESDE ECUADOR
From: Bruno SICARDY <[email protected]>Dear all,We set up two stations in Ecuador 23 km apart (one of them right onthe equator) with S/C refractors, 20-cm and 25-cm and IOTAcameras. Both stations could nicely observe P126 up to 20 mn beforethe event, at which point both sites were clouded out. This morning(Saturday) the weather is back to very clear. Sigh ...Bruno Sicardywith A. Carvajal, S. Carrillo, R. Machado, E. Recalde, who made theseobservations possible here in Ecuador.
DESDE LA PALMA
From Geert Davignon on La PalmaAs Roeland told you, we have data collected by a photometer which willbe reduced by prof. Gilbert Burki from Geneva Observatory. In apreliminary reduction no occultation by Pluto is discernible. Moreaccurate reductions will become available in the next days.On the other hand we collected also CCD images with our guidingcamera. In total there are 304 frames in FITS format. They constitute2.8 MB of data. These are raw images with no flatfield correction. Atar file is accesible via anonymous ftp on ftp.ster.kuleuven.ac.betype��� cd dist/geert��� get pluto.tarto retrieve the data.
DESDE M�RIDA, VENEZUELA
From: Wolfgant BeiskerSubject: no success in Merida (Venezuela)I feel very sorry, not to be able to announce any success. We hadproblems with focussing and centering the IOC camera on thetelescope. It cleared up about 1.5 hours before the event, nottotally, but not too bad. So no data were recorded, but probably wewere anyway out of the path. One of the reasons of the failures was,that the time for preparations here was too short. Electronically,both cameras were working well. Next time, I have to be sure, to be anight on the observatory for preparations. But that is life.�� I have to thank specially the local team of Patricia, Orlando andall the others, who contributed a lot of work into that event.�� I already received the bad news from Bruno and others, who wereclouded out. It's always a big disappointment!PS: You all know my saying: Only an occulted star is a happy star. Andwe want to make the stars more happy.
DESDE HONDURAS
From Honduras: Maria-Cristina Pin~eda de Carias, [email protected]Dear Dr. Pasachoff:Last night was cloudy and rainy at Tegucigalpa. We are very sorry.Best Regards.
DESDE NORTE DE CHILE
From Jim ElliotOne of our mobile stations (Olkin & Taylor) report that they wereunable to acquire data� -- although they were located in extremenorthern Chile, which should have been well within the occultationpath according to our final occultation prediction.
DESDE LIMA, PER�
[email protected]Hello all,I am sorry to tell you that we (Celso Montalve, Luis Gaviria Caveroand me) were unsuccessful last night thought we had good weather. Myflight Tacna to Lima was delayed and at the airport in Lima.� It tookanother half hour to meet us and the observing site was about 2.5h bycar outside Lima in the Andes (Long. W 76d 31.961', Lat. S 11d58.003', Alt. 2938m). We started immediately but at rush hour, so wereached this alternative observing site (the other one is about halfan hour further away at more than 3200m altitude) almost at sun set(and Luis really drove like a hell driver this small unpaved routeacross the mountains where sometimes there was several hundred meters"free fall" beside the piste -> my adrenalin level increasedsignificantely). After setting up the telescope and the camera we onlyhad 15min to locate the field but we were unable to do it in time. Theinterference by the moon was significantly (it was not 100%transparent, there was a halo around the moon), maybe. This was also aproblem to find P126.� Sad to read that many others sites were clouded out. If we onlywould have had one hour more for preperation we would have been ableto record something I think...but this is occultation bizness....Mike Kretlow (French-German-Peruanian Pluto flying circus)
DESDE EL TELESCOPIO ISAAC NEWTON
Isaac Newton Telescope results as of 2:20 pm EDT July 20 = 18:20 UTFrom:��� Alan Fitzsimmons ;[email protected]>Subject: Null result so farDear Pablo, Tollis et al.,I have done a quick-look reduction on the frames I have right now. Thebrightness of the star is constant to 1.5% rms over the observationspan. I should be able to beat that error bar down once I get thedarks and flats.
RESUMEN:Por las informaciones de El Teide y La Palma se deduce que la ocultaci�n no fue vista en esas latitudes muy al norte. Esto dejar�a fuera de la l�nea de observaci�n a Aruba y America Central.Desafortunadamente, nubes, problemas instrumentales o de adquisici�n de datos nos dejan sin datos desde Per�, Ecuador, o Putre, Chile y Venezuela.Con equipos desde varios pa�ses circulando alrededor del hemisferio occidental, y varios telescopios en lugares de observaci�n excelentes, sin detecci�n, esta podr�a ser considerada como la menos exitosa de todas las campa�as de observaci�n astronomica, a pesar de todos los intentos serios por obtener informaci�n.
Summary from JMP:It seems clear from the Teide and La Palma INT results that the occultation wasn't seen that far north. That would leave out the Arubaand Central American sites as well.� Unfortunately, clouds, instrumental, or acquisition problems left nodata from Peru, Ecuador, or Putre, Chile. We do not yet know whathappened at Iquique.� With teams from many countries circulating all around the westernhemisphere, and several of the world's best telescopes at excellentsites, yet no detection, this may go down as the least successfulexpedition ever in astronomy in spite of a variety of seriousattempts.� Better luck in August.
Observatoire de Paris-Meudon
LESIA - groupe plan�tologie
tel. 33(0) 1 45 07 74 09
[email protected]
REPORTE DE BRUNO SICARDI
Dear all, well, this event was tough. Thanks to the teams in N. Chile, it lookslike we got some data, great! Otherwise, I get the impression that theweather is weird in S. America these days. everything humanely possibe was made to get the event, againstclouds, fluctuating predictions, technical failures. It is also good tosee that big efforts have been made by local teams to make theobservations possible. This is good omen for future events, and lot of newthings learned on the way. Cheers, bisous, abrazos, beijoes Bruno PS. I will be back to Sao Paulo Tuesday morning, and then arriving inSantiago de Chile on July 28.
REPORTE DESDE EL VLT
.� She reports> that the VLT was not able to observe. More precisely, at the vlt we have images showing pluto's approach, andshowing that1) pluto passes approx 0.09 arcsec north of p136A2) the time of nearest approach was 1h44. But clouds arrived at 1.25h TU. Eric --E r i c�� G e n d r o nObservatoire de Meudon������� tel = 33 1 45 07 79 18Batiment Lyot92195 MEUDON Cedex FRANCE����������������������� fax = 33 1 45 07 79 17--
OTRO REPORTE DESDE LA SILLA
Dear all, some additional details on La Silla, as Francoise has left already. Francoise Roques wrote from La Silla that in spite of high winds they> could open the dome but she did not see an occultation after> 1:49. Since the prediction was for 1:44 I don't> understand. Apparently, it was too cloudy before 1:49. I am trying to> get a clarification from her; at the moment, e-mail to her doesn't go> through. She writes: "the sky was cloudy, however, we've got data> between 1:49 and 2:04 with very fluctuating sigmal. Nothing looking> like a disapearrance of P126A during this time interval." She reports> that the VLT was not able to observe.>� Francoise: Please clarify the reason for the time of your> observations. Was it cloudy at 1:44, the predicted time for your site?> Is that why you didn't start until 1:49 UT? There were some problems with the EBCCD wavefront sensor, and they could fix it just at that time. At the NTT, time resolved spectroscopy was acquired "continuously" from 01:42 till 02:05. There were some gaps in the data because of clouds, and, because of these clouds we had to make sequences shorter than originally expected (i.e. a gap of ~60s every 3min). No obvious occultation visible (although some possible candidates...).regards, Oli;