Pluto 07/06/2011
This event may be a double too, but at different places. It
involves a 15.3 magnitude star R ans 12.6 in K, so two times brighter than the last observed occultation in June 04.
The occultation crosses the Earth from 02:24 to 02:34 UT for Pluto and in Europe the occultation is expected to be around 02:37 UT. Shadow moves from right to left, each red dot is spaced by one minute, the nominal occultation time on the map, is to the big red dot.
The occultation crosses the Earth from 02:24 to 02:34 UT for Pluto and in Europe the occultation is expected to be around 02:37 UT. Shadow moves from right to left, each red dot is spaced by one minute, the nominal occultation time on the map, is to the big red dot.
| Star R mag | 15.3 |
| Star K mag | 12.6 |
| Star + Pluto mag | 13.7 |
| Magnitude drop in R | 0.3 |
| Max. Duration Pluto | 142s |
Observation tips:
Absolute time accuracy is essential to connect together all the observations after the fact. Check the time of your computer with many sources (phone talked hour, different internet sites, ideally with a GPS).
Beware of the dead times between images. If you manage an exposure time of 1 sec, but have a read time of 3 sec, then there is a 75% chance that you lose the dis(re)-appearance of the star. Then it is better to have, say, a 4 sec integration, as you have a 40% chance to miss the occultation.
-> There is many bright stars in the field, so you can select a small part of your CCD to acquire the occultation images, THIS CAN DRASTICALLY REDUCE THE DEAD TIME.
Finding charts (from DSS R band):
20x20 arc min
FOV
4x4 arc min
In May 31, Dennis Weaver observed the field of the next Pluto occultations. The target stars are indicated on the chart.
Jean Lecacheux determined a new offset to Pluto system, using images from Pic du Midi obtained by François Colas. The images were taken from May 28 to June 1th.
Using this new offsets, I genereted the new maps below.
