Grazing occultation 17th March

Doing the calculations for next year's Lunar Occultations, I discovered that on the National Holiday, a 5.6 mag star is due to experience a graze occultation for northsiders. Since a Grazing Lunar Occultation is something I would like to see, and since I have migrated to the northside anyway, I think I am going to try and observe it. So, is anyone on for forgoing drowning the shamrock in order to observe this phenomenon?

The details are that the star 406 B. Tauri will experience a grazing occultation on it's dark northern limb at around 21:37 on 17th March from a line that runs past Ashbourne, Swords and Malahide. What's a grazing occultation, you ask? It's where the moon just edges past a star - it edges so close to the star that the star "blinks" as it is hidden by lunar mountains and revealed by lunar valleys on the moon's limb. The science is that you video the event, and from the video, you can determine, to great accuracy, where those mountains are. There are organisations (eg IOTA) that are very interested in these observations.

Less than three-quarters of an hour later, if the thirst hasn't overtaken everyone, there is a regular occultation of the magnitude 4.56 star 136 Tauri.

Of course, it being Paddy's day, there is a chance that we will be pissed on. But if we are, then we can get pissed off, then just pissed .

Chris.

Does trhe line for this come any where near Maynooth?

Does trhe line for this come any where near Maynooth?

I don't think so Bart. Maynooth will be that little bit too far south of the line. You will probably see the star less than a quarter of a degree away from the Moon at theat time.


Seanie.

Does trhe line for this come any where near Maynooth?

If you draw a line which connects or passes near to Ashbourne, Swords and Malahide, and extrapolate it westwards, you will get a rough idea of how close it will come to Maynooth. So it certainly won't come within walking distance of Maynooth!

If there is interest, I'll try and produce a map of the track.

If there is interest, I'll try and produce a map of the track.

Or even if there isn't!


The above is a rough map of the path of the grazing occultations visible from Ireland to the end of March 2005. The events are -

a) 2004/12/21 18:47. Star magnitude 7.8
b) 2005/01/18 17:10. Star magnitude 5.3
c) 2005/01/23 18:21. Star magnitude 7.4
d) 2005/01/30 00:06. Star magnitude 7.0
e) 2005/02/04 05:04. Star magnitude 6.1
f) 2005/03/17 00:05. Star magnitude 6.9
g) 2005/03/17 21:37. Star magnitude 5.6

Times are when the occultation/conjunction is at a maximum in Dublin. If you want further details on any of these events, let me know!