Re-2: [meteorite-list] Stellar Eclipse in the Americas Now!

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 18 21:08:03 2005
Message-ID: <149.49319530.300dac6a_at_aol.com>

I wrote:
>It will be visible in the lands south of the swarth SOUTH from Four Corners
>to Dallas to Atlanta and to Norfolk Virginia. If you live along that line,
you
>will can see a grazing occultation which means the star will telegraph to
>you the specific mountains and valleys along Luna's surface as it skims
>along - Fantastic trip from the backyard with the family!

Hola Bernd, Jerry, and List, I also wrote that the graze line passed through
Four Corners, Dallas, Atlanta, and Norfolk, Virginia and the occultation was
SOUTH of that line in the original message, why the message Bernd? It was a
little short notice, just good for those who were in front of their
computers. I can report mixed luck on my attempt at observation, and no fireballs,
even though Hurrucane Emily is angrily headed our way, skies were clear, and
at 10:58 PM I handed the binoculars to my guest, who promptly decided to look
at something else interesting for a moment, unknown to me." So I ask,
"What do you see?" -"The stars are so beautiful..." "-Gimme that....
ARRRRRRrrrrgghhh. Antares is gone." (answer "I didn't think it would happen so
quickly..." ).
 
Jerry, not to fear, there is one more stellar occultation better than 4th
magnitude, by the Moon this year. Mark your calender for local time 3:16 AM or
so on 23 December 2005. It'll be a waning half-Moon to the Southeast for
you. Unfortunately, at 3.6 magnitude, the star, Zavijah, the second brightest
one in the Constellation Virgo pales in comparision to Antares which is 11.4
times brighter. But Zavijah has the honor of translating into English as
"the smartest one" or "the barking one" and being a lot more similar to the
color of out Sun in size and jut a tad bit warmer. Too bad we just miss the
night occultation of Spica, the brightest Star in Virgo and on par with Antares,
two days later. That will be a great Xmas present, an occultation at dawn of
another first magnitude star, for people living from North Dakota to New
Mexico and further west.
 
PS Antares is 400-500 light years away (Divide that by 3.26 to get about 125
Parsecs) in distance. When Bernd quotes Burnham's comment on size being 700
times that of our Sun, he means to quote Burnham compares the size of the
respective diameters. Thus Antares would reach the asteroid belt if it were in
the Sun's place...and a third of a billions Suns would fit within its 3600
degree K gaseous photosphere. By the way, Antares is one of the biggest
candidates to go supernova any moment...but this occultation didn't precipitate
that...
 
Saludos, Doug.
Received on Mon 18 Jul 2005 09:07:54 PM PDT