Tag Archives: Maddow Blog

Regulus Occultation Update #2 – Everyone Else Is Seeing The Event – But Will CNY?

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):

Alert Notice 499: Predicted occultation of Regulus

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):

Asteroid Erigone makes a bright star vanish for 14 seconds – Don’t miss this rare event!

Beyond the larger amateur astronomy community, this announcement and interview (with IOTA members) comes from usatoday.com:

Asteroid to dim a bright star for some in Northeast

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.

Week in Geek: This week, a big star ‘winks’

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.).

2014mar15_weathercom

Above: Weather predictions from weather.com.

2014mar15_newschannel9

Above: Similar predictions from News Channel 9.

Above: More similar predictions from CNYCentral.