2024 Occultations by Major Planets and their Satellites

2024 Occultations by Major Planets and their Satellites - Updated 2024 September 30

The Occultation by Hyperion (Saturn7 or P6M07) on October 8 UT

The Occultation by Neptune on October 9 UT

Early 2024 planetary satellite results

Corrected Occult Watcher link, and RASC Handbook corrections

These occultations are described and illustrated (with several Occult maps)
in this .pdf document. It includes several hot links to external Web
pages, but links to internal files, the .xml input files
used by the Occult program, are given below. 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.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

2024 OCTOBER 8 (9h UT) OCCULTATION BY HYPERION

As noted in the .pdf document, there will be an important occultation by Hyperion,
the largest (277 km) of Saturn's irregular moons with an unusual shape, low density,
and chaotic rotation. An occultation of a 12th mag. star by (P6M07) Hyperion was
recorded by D. Hooper at Parkdale, Vic., Australia on 2022 Nov. 17 (he was the
only observer of the event), and no observations of any other occultations by
Hyperion have ever been reported to IOTA.

For this event, the star will be mag. 13.3 and visible from a rather wide path
from southern Calif. to Colorado, as shown in this Occult map that has the star's
coordinates and other event details; a central occultation will last 14 seconds
with a good 1.3-mag. drop.

The OW cloud link has zoomable Aladin star charts, the Occult map, and a
list of observers currently signed up for the event (so far, only Greg Lyzenga
in California; I hope more will sign up for this important event).

The zoomable OW cloud Google map also has event details in the right margin.
Click anywhere on the map to obtain the local mid time for the occultation,
as well as the star's and Sun's altitudes at the time.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

2024 OCTOBER 9 (0h UT) TRANS-ATLANTIC OCCULTATION BY NEPTUNE

As noted in the .pdf document, there will be an important occultation by Neptune
of an 11.4 mag. star visible from the Americas, Europe, and Africa, as shown in
this Occult map that has the star's coordinates and other event details.
In North America, the event can be seen in a dark sky in the eastern coastal
regions, with the event occurring in varying amounts of dusk twilight in the
central USA and central Canada. In North America, the occultation will last
about 28 minutes (a little more in southern locations like Florida, and less
towards the northwest), but dimming in Neptune's atmosphere will last a few min.
before the complete disappearnace (D) and after the reappearance (R). Here is
a diagram showing the appearance of Neptune and its rings.

You should either obtain local information using the OW cloud links given at
the bottom of this section, or the Lucky Star Interactive map, or generate it
yourself using Occult4.

Most useful is the Lucky Star page for this occultation; if you click on
your planned observation site on the zoomable ("Interactive") map at the
bottom of the page, a bubble will appear with the mid time (U.T.) AND
duration for that location (from those, you can calculate the local D and R
times), as well as the altitudes of the star, the Sun, and the Moon, and
the azimuth of the star. Of course, since those circumstances are for the
central time, they will be different for the D and R times.

We have generated three tables of contact times for the D and R by Neptune,
as well as predictions for brief occultations by Neptune's ring arcs.
The arcs are not complete, so the chances of recording any fadings by them
is small, and with short durations and the proximity of the much brighter
planet, they will be very difficult to record. The cities in the contact
times list are in alphabetical order; note the name of the city in the list
closest to you, to use for the circumstances list given after this contact
times section.

Contact Times (UT):
North America
Europe
This worldwide list has hundreds more cities than the other lists above.
The city names start with the country code (first listed cities are in "CA"
for Canada, not California), then in alphabetical order within the country.
"US" for USA is near the bottom; after the city name, the two-letter State
code is given.

Circumstances:
These lists are in north-to-south order in the sky plane, so again, Canadian
cities are first, but NOT in alphabetic order. Since you don't know the
north-to-south order, it's best to save the plain text (.txt) file to your
computer, then open it with either Notepad or Word, and search for the closest
city that you found in the contacts list. The U.T. given is the CENTRAL time
for the occultation, with the altitudes of the star and sun given in the last
columns. Since the occultation will last about 28 minutes (but longer for
European, Caribbean, African, and Latin American cities), remember that the
D will occur 14 or more minutes earlier, and the R 14 or more minutes later,
then the central time. Then, the altitudes of the star and Sun will be
different from the listed values. For North Americans, the D will thus be
in stronger twilight, while the sky will be darker for the R. Europeans will
have a lower altitude for the occultation for the R than for the D.
North America
Europe
This worldwide list has hundreds more cities than the other lists above.

Damya Souami's August message notes some of the challenges of trying to
observe this occultation, and notes the (small) possibility for discovering
new small satellites, ring arcs, or other material near Neptune, if they can
overcome the challenge of recording the star in the close presence of the
much brighter planet.

The OW cloud link has zoomable Aladin star charts, the Occult map, and a
list of observers currently signed up for the event (so far, 34 in Europe amd
the UK, but only three in North America).

There will also be an occultation of a 12.9-mag. star by Uranus on Nov. 12,
according to Damya's message, with the Lucky Star page for the event showing
it to be visible from most of the Eastern Hemisphere, but not from N. America.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

PAST OCCULTATIONS BY MAJOR PLANETS AND THEIR SATELLITES
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

2024 JANUARY 15 OCCULTATION BY CALLISTO

As noted in the .pdf document, there was an important occultation by Callisto
on Jan. 15. Although at mag. 8.8, the star is fainter than Callisto, the expected
mag. drop of 0.06 should be detectable with 20cm and larger telescopes, helped by
the relatively long central duration of over 8 minutes. Callisto is well-separated
from Jupiter; Ganymede, on the opposite side of the planet, might be used as a
comparison object, if a suitable star is not available in your FOV. The occultation
first occurred over the Hawaiian Islands, then over much of the USA south of the
northern limit (at approximately latitude 42 deg. north), and Mexico. The event
was too low (in the west) to observe east of the Mississippi River. The
Lucky Star Project is interested in this event. It will help the ESA Jupiter Icy
Moons Explorer, or JUICE, mission that was launched last April, but will not arrive
at Jupiter, to begin its tour of the Galilean satellites, until 2032.

Tony George in Scottsdale recorded a 329s occultation, while Kirk Bender west of
Santa Cruz, Calif. recorded a 322s occultation. This information is on OW cloud,
but not yet on the North American asteroidal occultations results page.

Below are links to useful files about the event:
Occult map
Map of USA showning the northern limit
Jupiter and Satellites Configuration
Contact (D and R, UT) times for about 150 cities
These are in chronological order; find a city closest to you and remember it for the next file.
Central time UT and circumstances for about 150 cities
These are in south to north order, relative to the path. Most cities north of the northern
limit are not included. The altitudes of Callisto and the Sun are given in the last
columns. It may be best to copy all, and paste this into (or download it as) a plain
text file that you can edit (with Notepad or Word), to find the city closest to you.
Occult4 input file for just this occultation.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

2024 JANUARY 20 OCCULTATION BY MIRANDA

There was an important occultation by Miranda, the innermost (5th discovered)
of the larger moons of Uranus, but the star was faint, with the occultation occurring
for up to 51s around 21:50 UT over a 500-km-wide path over southern Europe, as shown
in this world view. The Gmag of the star is 15.6 so long exposures or integrations
were needed for those without very large telescopes. The path crossed some of the
same regions crossed by the Betelgeuse/Leona event in 2023 Decembwe. Those who might be
able to record this event should read this message by Marcelo Assafin about it.
I don't know if any successful observations were obtained; it is not in the Occult file
of observed occultations. I haven't checked SODIS but if it were reported there, it
should have made it to the Occult database by now. The event is on the Lucky Star
Occultation Portal, but with no map showing observer locations and results, as is the
case for occultations where observations were reported, so it's unlikely that anyone
got an observation of this faint occultation.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

CORRECTIONS TO THE OBSERVERS HANDBOOK 2024

The USA edition of the 2024 RASC Observers Handbook left out the column
labels for all of the tables of occultations by asteroids on pages 245 to 251,
an error that crept in just before the print run and after (correct) galley
proofs had been sent to me for review. Corrected .pdf pages are posted on
the website of the RASC Handbook.

Another problem, spotted by Joan, is an updated link for Occult Watcher, on p. 246,
7th line counting up from “Occultations by Near-Earth Asteroids” the link given
there can not be used to access the current version of the software. After I
submitted the old link, Steve Preston created a better page for Occult Watcher
that gives much information about it, as well as the link for the current version.
This update is noted on the RASC 2024 Handbook updates page.

Not yet on the RASC correction page is the following:

On p. 248, 2nd line of “Occultations by Special Main-Belt Asteroids”, there are
no spaces between any of the words on that line. I’m not sure how this happened,
it is OK (with appropriate spaces) in the Word file I submitted, but this error
is in all of the proof .pdf’s that were sent to me in late August and early Sept.
I should have seen it in those, but missed it, as apparently did all the other
reviewers; Joan found this last night.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

For 2024:
Worldwide major planet and satellites events, 341 events
A list of all of these events is here.

Worldwide asteroid events from Steve Preston, including the major planet and satellite events
- for the asteroidals, including many NEA and TNO events prediction maps and data are
available at https://www.asteroidoccultation.com/.
Starting this year, Steve will no longer update these.
Occult Watcher, described in the .pdf document, is the best way to find out
about UPDATED upcoming events near your location. But the link there is not
the best one; you should learn about and obtain the software at this link.

Pages for maps and predictions of occultations by special classes of
asteroids can be reached by clicking on the links below:

Brighter stars occulted by Main-Belt Asteroids

These other pages below are available:

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs)
Selected Special Main-Belt Asteroids
Trojan Asteroids (Lucy targets are emphasized)
Distant objects (Comet SW1, Centaurs, TNOs, and some satellites)
______

David and Joan Dunham, 2023 December 31 and 2024 January 2 and September 30
e-mail: dunham@starpower.net
cell phone: 301-526-5590