2023 Occultations by Special Main-Belt Asteroids - Updated 2023 Nov. 28
Expanded information on the Dec. 12th occultation of Betelgeuse by (319) Leona and info. about important online meeting held Nov. 11 added in a page for the event
These occultations are described and illustrated in this .pdf document. It includes several hot links to external Web pages, but links to internal files, especially the .xml input files used by the Occult program, are given below. The map and table, and some other information given in the .pdf file, were published on pages 248 and 249 of the Observers Handbook for 2023, which has been available since late last November. We apologize for being so late in posting this online version for these events. _ _ _ _ _ MUCH INFORMATION POSTED ABOUT THE OCCULTATION OF BETELGEUSE BY LEONA ON DECEMBER 12, AND WORK THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE BEFOREHAND It is now all in this page for the event _ _ _ _ _ JULY IOTA MEETING PRESENTATION ON OCCULTATIONS BY SPECIAL M.B. ASTEROIDS In another presentation, David talked about occultations by many other objects, especially by distant solar system objects (beyond Jupiter), but also by Trojan asteroids and by special main-belt asteroids, especially those that have interesting shapes and/or satellites, some described below. _ _ _ _ _ Much useful information is also given on a special page I set up for the Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors (ACM) conference held in Flagstaff, AZ last month. It includes a link to my presentation given there about NEA and other special occultations, to a much longer version of that presentation given on July 9 by Zoom to the ChesMont Astronomical Society, to several abstracts and ePosters relating to occultations from the ACM Web site, and to much general occultation information suitable for those interested in getting started with observing occultations. _ _ _ _ _ OCCULT INPUT .XML FILES FOR 2023 When you open these files with your Web browser, you should get a display that looks like this. The larger files may take a couple of minutes to show this appearance, showing a messed-up display before then. Once the proper view appears, right-click anywhere on the display, then "Save as" to a directory on your computer; the best directory is the \Asteroid\ subdirectory in your Occult\ directory. For the 24 special main-belt asteroid events mapped and tabulated in the main .pdf document Worldwide special main-belt events to mag. 14, 620 occultations, not including (252) Clementina, but does include (319) Leona, so use this file to find Leona occultations in your region. When you open this file with Occult, you can filter by asteroid number, so just type "319" and check the box to its left under "Asteroid number" in the orange box, second from the right side of "Selection Filters" and you'll list only the occultations by Leona. Worldwide events for rest of 2023 by (319) Leona to mag. 16. Worldwide events for rest of 2023 by (5457) Queens to mag. 16. This asteroid was confirmed to have a satellite from 2 occultations in Europe in Sept. Worldwide events by (16) Clementina to mag. 14. The bright main-belt occultations page contains additional explanatory information not repeated here; it also has links to other pages, such as one for occultations by Near-Earth asteroids.. ______ David and Joan Dunham, 2023 April 3; updated July 24 and Nov. 28. e-mail: dunham@starpower.net cell phone: 301-526-5590