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| The Occulation of Kuiper Belt Object 55636 |
| Gary Jacobson, Bernie Volz, John Briggs, Paul Valleli and Bruce Berger |
| Thursday, Nov 12, 2009 at 8:00 PM |
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| In October, ATMoB members Gary Jacobson, Bernie Volz, John Briggs, Paul Valleli and Bruce Berger traveled to different parts of the globe in hopes of being part of the first team to capture the occultation of a distant star by a Kuiper Belt Object. This was part of a program of the MIT-Williams Occultation Consurtium that is co-chaired by James Elliot of MIT and Jay Pasachoff of Williams College.
The teams were outfitted with the latest CCD cameras, GPS receivers and laptops. This system, dubbed PICO, for Portable Instrument for Capturing Occultations, fits into a ruggedized carry-on case suitable for travel almost anywhere on the globe. Leading the teams were Dr. Michael Person and Matthew Lockhart at MIT's Planetary Astronomy Lab. Telescope sizes ranged in size from a borrowed 8" SCT (with an interesting story behind it) in Australia to a 1.5 meter Ritchey-ChrИtien high in the mountains of the Mexican Baja.
Team members as well as one of the leaders from MIT or Williams will be relating their individual occultation experiences.
Speaker Bio
Please join us for a pre-meeting dinner discussion at Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA at 6:00pm before the meeting. |
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