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[Centaur]

I've determined that during the evening of Wednesday, February 12 the 97% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon will occult the magnitude +9.7 asteroid 18 Melpomene for observers in North America including Chicagoland. Immersion will occur on the lunar dark limb and emersion on the bright limb.

I realize that this will be quite a challenge, but some of you have access to telescopes that could be up to it. If you would like predictions for a specific location, please reply to this thread with a longitude, latitude, elevation and time zone.

Descriptions, photos and accurate timings would be welcome additions to this thread.

[Paulie pchris00]

I'll try.





Shut up, Yoda.

[Centaur]

Jan 26, 2014 20:20:02 GMT -6 Paulie pchris00 said:

I'll try.

Good luck, Paulie. Here are my predictions for the Conway Observatory.

20:12:20 CST - Immersion
21:36:20 CST - Emersion

[Paulie pchris00]

Thanks, but Conway might be out of the question until some of the snow melts. I went down there January 12, after the first big blizzard and freeze to check on the water pipes, and the parking lot hadn't been plowed or salted. Since it's not in public use from December to February, I don't think the county bothers to maintain any of the grounds. The parking lot is gravel, anyway, which I would think would make it difficult to plow anyway. I'll have to be somewhere closer to home, and hope my 6" Dob can capture 18 Melpomene so close to the nearly full lunar disk.

[Paulie pchris00]

Wouldn't you know it. It was cloudy at 7:00 PM, so I went to a meet-up with my atheist group. When I left just before 10:00 PM, the sky was clear, the Moon was out, yet the wind was pelting my face with sleet. I totally missed it.