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