The occultation of a star by asteroid Cava (505) - 23 June 2012

My mother was always saying that Night of Saint John's day's is full of mysteries and Earth reveals its treasures - she had her birhday this day. The heaven has opened and I managed to catch a new positive asteroidal occultation.

The night was fantastic. I was deciding whether to do a deep sky object or pay attention to occultation. I chose the second choice and now I know that it was the best. Despite the low altitude above horizon and low brightness of the target star I managed to find it quite fast. Exposute time had to be set to 0.4s due to detection in noise. After that I was waiting and finally recorded the occultation.

The map with predicted path:


The begin of the occultation was at 23:56:26,178 UTC +/- 0,4s; the end at 23:56:27,390 UTC +/- 0,4s. The whole duration was 1,2s +/-0,8s.

The exposure time is rather long and it is obvious that I need a better CCD camera for occultations. Reader, do not you want to be a sponsor? :)

Update 31 January 2013:



Technical information:
Optics:Newton 36cm + reductor 0,7x
Focal:1050mm
Aperature:3
Pointation:unpointed
Mount:open fork
Software:QVideo
Camera:cooled QHY5





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