Pluto Occultation of P131.1

Ron Stone has provided new astrometric measurements of this star from observations at FASTT at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The offset is relative to the star's published position, as determined by McDonald and Elliot (2000)**. The Pluto offsets to its ephemeris were estimated from Pluto's recent occultation with P126 in July 2002. Results for Pluto are tabulated as offsets from the unmodified light-time corrected, geocentric JPL Horizon's ephemeris (PLU006 and DE-0406, LE-0406).
Reference Position (2.0)** RA (J2000) Dec (J2000) R Mag*
P131.1 16 58 49.456 -12 51 31.41 15.65
Offsets from Reference
Body RA (arcsec) Dec (arcsec)  
P131.1* – 0.387+/– 0.020 – 0.499+/– 0.023  
Pluto – 0.02 +/– 0.007 – 0.023 +/– 0.007  

* From Ron Stone's reduction

** AJ 120, 1599

P131.1 Current Prediction

(as of 2002 08 02

11:12 AM EDT)

Date and Time (yyyy mm dd hh:mm:ss) 2002 08 21 07:02:27 UT
Minimum Geocentric Separation (arcsec) 0.05 +/- 0.02
Position Angle (in degrees, clockwise from East) 117
Geocentric Shadow Velocity (km s-1) 6.6
Star Magnitude 15.7 (V)
Solar Angle (deg) 107
East Longitude (deg) -179
Distance (AU) 30.24
Prediction Version p131.1-2.4

Prediction Notes

Archive of past P131.1 occultation predictions.

Pluto Occultation Predictions for Individual Sites

Site East Longitude Latitude Distance* (km) Immersion (UT)

Mid-time (UT)

Emersion (UT)

Altitude

P131.1

(Degrees)

Anderson Mesa -111 32 12 35 05 48 1215   06:47:58   12
Dominion Observatory, Canada -123 25 00 48 31 12 519 06:44:30 06:47:05 06:49:40 13
Geocentric     1118 07:01:40 07:02:27 07:03:13  
Guillermo Haro, Mexico -110 23 00 31 03 12 1625   06:48:26   13
Haleakala -156 15 24 20 42 24 745 06:50:16 06:52:27 06:54:38 50
Lick -121 38 12 37 20 36 539 06:45:19 06:47:53 06:50:27 18
Lowell -111 39 54 35 12 12 1200   06:47:57   12
Mauna Kea (IRTF) -155 28 29 19 49 46 624 06:50:08 06:52:32 06:54:55 51
Mt Lemmon -110 47 30 32 26 30 1485   06:48:16   12
Palomar -116 51 54 33 21 24 1125 06:47:31

06:48:13

06:48:55 17
San Felipe, Mexico -115 27 54 31 02 36 1394   06:48:28   17
Tonantzintla, Mexico -98 18 54 19 02 00 3077   06:50:27   6
WIRO -105 58 36 41 05 54 861 06:45:26 06:47:23 06:49:21 6

* distance from the center of Pluto's path across the Earth. Any site beyond 1160 km (the half-light radius of the shadow) is considered to be outside the shadow. The error in the distance from the center is several hundred kilometers for this prediction, so some sites presently tabulated as outside the shadow may be within it and vice versa. The times may be in error by several minutes, so data recording should commence about 5 minutes prior to the predicted immersion time and end several minutes after the emersion time. Sites predicted to be outside the shadow should record data for 10-15 minutes, centered at the mid-time.

 

Please direct all inquiries to Planetary Astronomy Lab (planetary-astronomy@mit.edu)

Last updated by Katie Carbonari (kcarbon@mit.edu) 2002 08 06 11:06 AM EDT

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