Upper MidWest Occultations

These maps and files are generally for asteroid and lunar grazing occultations passing through the Upper Mid West in the U.S. and as a resource for people without Occult or that want to take a quick look at a few of the upcoming events in this area.

Check these sites for ones I may not have posted, other areas and more information,
Derek Breits page or
David Dunhams site.
Occult Watcher is an excellent program for planning high and low probabilityAsteroid events.

Maps and Data are made using Occult 4.0
I will make Google maps for the grazes as I
have time, first if an event is near me or if someone requests one.

This is not a "How to" page. To learn more, check out, the IOTA Manual! 0r An Introduction to GrazingOccultations, more info Here, and a wealth of info on the Robert Sandy site.
If you are interested in learning more
about occultations I highly recommend joining the IOTA group also joining IOTA. IOTA stands for the
International Occultation Timing Association.

Times are for UT unless otherwise noted, be
sure to correct for your time zone or
you may be a day late! I know by
experience!

WARNING: Many of these grazes are what I would call "extra events". Meaning stars of magnitude 7.5 to near 9.0. I put the limit of the grazing stars I list at magnitude 9.0, unless it is during an eclipse. My experience is easily recording 8.5 and 8.6 magnitude stars with a 6" reflector and Watec 902H2 ultimate camera.
The Moon was high and last quarter for both but
also had thin clouds passing by. People with similar equipment should have equal success.

You can watch a video of my first successful
recording of a graze, SAO76021 mag 8.6, 8/16/06 here 5MB file. I have since modified the occultation scope and now able to rotate the camera so the time insertion is not on the Moon limb. My first graze was of regulus in the late 80's.

These may not be all of the grazes of stars for this area, just the ones I feel are do-able for a portable scope about 6" and had time to put on the page.
Remember your mileage may vary and only from
experience will you what you are capable of with
your equiment.

The data files have the times along the path and
also 1 or more profiles to help determine the offset you may want to use. Unless your site is within ~2 degrees of a profile, it should be used only as a rough guide. Distance from Centerline decisions are highly Longitude dependant! There are many of us happy to help you.

Most of the graze paths and data are made for an
elevation of 250 meters, only because that works
well for this area of the US. If you are more than
300meters different in elevation you may want to do an elevation correction.

If you would like a profile for your site, or want a
prediction for a different elevation, please contact
me