NOTE: For additional information about the Regulus occultation, we’ve three previous posts at cnyo.org that cover the official IOTA (International Occultation Timing Association) press release, a little more info about the event itself, and a previous update from last week. Links are below:
Official IOTA Press Release: www.cnyo.org/2014/02/20/iota-official-press-release-best-and-brightest-asteroid-occultation-ever-to-be-visible-across-new-york-state/
Additional Information: www.cnyo.org/2014/03/04/central-new-york-take-note-and-help-out-the-occultation-of-regulus-by-asteroid-erigone-on-march-20th/
CNYO Update #1: www.cnyo.org/2014/03/12/regulus-occultation-update-weve-got-erigone-on-our-minds/
Greetings fellow astrophiles!
With only 3 full days (and a few hours to either side) left before the occultation of Regulus by Main Belt asteroid Erigone, the news media is starting to feature this event in their always-to-infrequent science snippets (that said, it has been a busy week).
Within the amateur astronomy community came this announcement from the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers):
And this ever-thorough analysis from Astro Bob (this is a plug to get you to subscribe to Astro Bob’s RSS feed. His writings are some of the very best in the community):
Beyond the larger amateur astronomy community, this announcement and interview (with IOTA members) comes from usatoday.com:
Our blogging about the occultation even caught the eyes of Shannon Ash, in-house astrophysicist at the Rachel Maddow Show Blog (I guess we can call this a “link out” instead of a “shout out”), who included a link to our announcement of the IOTA press release.
We will await similar “link outs” from Fox News.
So, the good news is that the event is starting to make its rounds in the media. The bad news is, as of Sunday evening, that we in CNY may not get a clear shot at observing the occultation. A smattering of weather predictions from weather.com, News Channel 9, and a youtube post of the forecast from CNYCentral are shown below (the youtube bad news shows up around 3min40sec). We all know that 24 hours in CNY is a LONG time when it comes to weather changes, so we await the predictions on Tuesday (Then Wednesday. Then Wednesday afternoon. Then Wednesday, 11:00 p.m.).
Above: Weather predictions from weather.com.
