As told in the August 2014 Sky & Telescope, on the evening of August 19th the faint asteroid 232 Russia will black out a 9.8-magnitude star in for up to 2 or 3 seconds as seen from a narrow track running from Minnesota south of the Great Lakes and across Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. The occultation will happen within a couple minutes of 1:47 on the 20th UT in Minnesota and 1:48 UT at the East Coast. The star will be about 25° up in the south-southwestern sky.

Here are a map of the track, finder charts for the star, predicted times, and more details.


Looking beyond, here is Steve Preston's pick of the best asteroid occultations worldwide for 2014.

And Preston's master list of many more asteroid occultation predictions.

To learn about today's asteroid-occultation timing world and to join the fun, see Worldwide Asteroidal Occultation Observations and Resources. Video is now the standard timing method. For information on video recording and precise time extraction, see the "Equipment" heading.

For actual human advice and help, join the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) Yahoo discussion group, say hi, and ask.

Here are results of past timing campaigns (in the "Results of Observations" box at top).

Free e-book: Chasing the Shadow: The IOTA Occultation Observer’s Manual (the preview page).

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