Sunday, January 27, 2008

Europe, Jan. 30: 5 mag. star to be occulted by small asteroid!

A rare occultation of a (faintly) naked-eye star (5.7 mag.) by a small (18 km) asteroid will be visible in several European countries on the evening of Jan. 30: Since the track uncertainty is greater than the asteroid diameter, many observers will miss this rare event, but the more people look, the more likely someone will see the star disappear (for at most 1.2 seconds). See these maps for the world, all of Europe and Germany (where everyone not in the deep red zone should look at the critical time) for details!