mu Geminorum occultation
James Kessel Oct 1 4:57 PM
The November 2000 Issue of S&T has a prominant article by Roger Sinnott on
the occultation of mu Geminorum (mag 2.6) by 752 Sulamitis (mag 13).
Looking at the ocultation path map in the article, I had the uncomfortable
feeling that the asteroid might be passing a little South of me at my
location in Northern Cochise county, AZ. So I did an animation for the next
1202 hours in Guide and it appears that the path of Sulamitis has a closest
approach to the star of 2.3 arc seconds. This is using the most recent
mpcorb data. However, moving my observatory site 1 degree in any direction
had very little effect (0.1 arc sec) on the closeness of the approach. In
fact, to entirely eliminate this 'closest approach residual' I would have
to move my observatory to W 25 degree N 46 degrees, somewhere in the
Atlantic.
I am not using GSC-Act data yet but the insensitivity of Guide's
animation path to changes in the observatory location lead me to believe
there is some fundamental error in the calculation of the animation path. I
am asking a lot but could Martin Federspeil's algorithm be incorporated
into Guide?
Jim Kessel