Hi all

Just got this in my inbox. Guide simulates a good path map for this rare
event.

Good luck to those in the area.

regds
James


Summary
-------
On the afternoon of 2001 Dec 03 UT, the 12 km diameter asteroid (254)
Augusta
will occult a 3.9 mag star [Maia - 20 Tau] in the constellation Taurus for
observers along a
path across Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan.

In the case of an occultation, the combined light of the asteroid and the
star
will drop by 11.4 mag to 15.3 mag (the magnitude of the asteroid) for at
most
1.0 seconds. (That is, for many, the star will just appear to vanish
abruptly for a second). The bright Moon, 91% sunlit, will be 48 deg. away,
so the event will be rather difficult for naked-eye observers, but it will
be easy to see with binoculars and manually-focused camcorders (which can
record at least an accurate duration for the event, much better than can
be timed visually).

This update is based on UNSO/Flagstaff astrometry for the asteroid kindly
provided by Ron Stone, historical astrometry from AstDys, and the following
catalogs for the star position: Hipparcos .


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