Attempted Varuna Observations

By MJ Person, December 8, 2008

On the night of December 6th, we attempted to observe a predicted stellar occultation by Varuna from MIT's Wallace Astrophysical Observatory. Although WAO was significantly outside of our predicted path, the large uncertainties on KBO occultation predictions would have made the observations useful in limiting where the shadow could have gone even if it did not pass over Massachusetts. Unfortunately, observations from Eastern Mass were clouded out, and observations from Western Mass (at Williams College) were snowed out, so no data were obtained.