IOTA Occultation Campaigns
Observing campaigns are events that provide an opportunity for training new observers as well as general interaction among all observers. And the observations collected during a well-observed occultation give important information on the asteroid shape, possible detection of an asteroidal and/or stellar companion, and a well determined asteroidal position.
IOTA Campaign 2024
Several events during the second half of 2024 are under consideration for the IOTA 2024 campaign.
IOTA Campaign 2023
The event chosen for the 2023 IOTA annual observation campaign was the (704) Interamnia occultation of TYC 2413-01489 on Sept 13. This event, as can be seen from the plots, passed near many observer locations, traversing a West to East wide path that crossed the country from northern Baja California and southern California to the Great Lakes, and on into Canada where the event became unobservable in bright early morning twilight.
Seventeen observers reported observing from 22 stations. The resulting data are fitted to a DAMIT image as can be seen in the reviewed asteroid occultations presented on the web site www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/Results/Reviewed/ under the listing for 2023.
Near Earth Asteroid Occultations for 2024
Observing occultations by NEAs is a very interesting and challenging endeavor, but a rewarding one. Results from occultations have led to better knowledge of their orbits and increased precision in determining whether or not a specific object may pose a risk of a damaging impact on Earth. Improvements in predicting the narrow occultation path across the Earth’s surface and improvements in observing equipment has brought precise timing of these very short events within the reach of more observers.
More about NEA occultations in North America during 2024, including some information about campaigns for them, is given here.
These special campaigns are generally not announced well in advance so they will not be promoted on these pages. They are normally announced to the IOTAoccultations groups.io list.