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Occultation Campaigns

The link above provides ongoing observational campaigns of occultations that takes into account the most accurate ephemerides as determined by Rio-Paris-Spain teams.

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The link above provides predictions of stellar occultations by TNOs and Centaurs, as part of the efforts led by the Observatório Nacional/MCTIC and the Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia (P.I’s.: R. Vieira-Martins and L. da Costa, Brazil), the Paris Observatory (ERC “Lucky Star” project, P.I.: B. Sicardy, France), and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (P.I.: J.-L. Ortiz, Spain). All objects considered here are those listed by the Johnston’s Archive, as last updated on 2016/SEP/05. Exception is made to Pluto and those objects that are presented as not having an MPC designation.

These maps are intended to provide a useful step to select those events on which a more careful work to refine their predictions is considered to be of interest. More accurate predictions to a smaller number of objects, as well as details on observational procedures and hints to observe an occultation event, can be obtained at the Lucky Star page by J. Desmars and at F. Braga-Ribas’ page.

Please, read the ReadMe file for details on the page and its contents.

Please, if you plan to observe one of these occultation events, contact Julio Camargo or F. Braga-Ribas

Contacts:

Website design and maintenance: helpdesk

 

Maps and Tables:

– They involve efforts from the three institutions mentioned above (Rio, Paris, and Granada teams). Emails can be sent to Julio Camargo

 

Acknowledgements:

– This work is funded by the LIneA, Observatório Nacional/MCTIC, and INCT do e-Universo.

– This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement.

– This work has made use of the NAIF/SPICE softwares and scripts.

References
Acton, C.H.; “Ancillary Data Services of NASA’s Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility;” Planetary and Space Science, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 65-70, 1996.

Charles Acton, Nathaniel Bachman, Boris Semenov, Edward Wright; A look toward the future in the handling of space science mission geometry; Planetary and Space Science (2017); DOI 10.1016/j.pss.2017.02.013

– This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France

Reference
2000,A&AS,143,9 , “The SIMBAD astronomical database”, Wenger et al.

– The maps were built using PGPLOT routines in a code written by B. Sicardy (Paris Observatory).

– Special thanks to J. Giorgini (JPL – Pasadena – California) for his help with Horizons ephemerides.