![\"\"](\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Sirius-003-300x202.jpeg\")
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Jamestown\u00a0 (Tim Bratton)\u00a0 Dr. Timothy Bratton says,\u00a0the IOTA (the organization that computes asteroid and lunar occultations) just factored in the revised path of Sirius, which is a double star system (the primary star is accompanied by a small white dwarf).\u00a0 The dwarf’s presence has yanked the epicenter (common center of gravity) of the Sirius system just enough that the occultation path will pass east of the United States altogether, so the U.S. wont see the tiny asteroid 4388 Jurgenstock \u00a0cover the star, so there won\u2019t be a \u201cDisapearing\u00a0 Star tonight.\u201d\u00a0 He adds,” Needless to say, I’m very disappointed about this!<\/p>\n
Previously…<\/p>\n
Jamestown\u00a0 (CSi)\u00a0 Dr. Timothy Bratton of Jamestown says\u00a0 if sky conditions cooperate, that around 11:30 p.m. CST on Monday evening, the \u201cDog Star\u201d Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star on our skies, may disappear for up to 1.8 seconds as the tiny asteroid 4388 Jurgenstock covers it.\u00a0 As luck would have it, the central path of this occultation (eclipse of the star by the planetoid\u2019s tiny disk) runs almost directly through Jamestown!\u00a0 Your naked eyes, field glasses, or binoculars will be all you need to observe this event.<\/p>\n
(The Voyager 4.5.1 <\/em>(Carina Software) graphic shows the SSW-SW skyline at Jamestown at 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 18 (Monday), 2019.\u00a0 You can\u2019t miss Sirius; it\u2019s the brightest star in the sky, and lies to the lower left of Orion the Hunter.\u00a0 Sirius may disappear for nearly two seconds as asteroid Jurgenstock passes over it.)<\/p>\n At that time, dazzling white Sirius (magnitude -1.44) will be 20\u00bd degrees above our SSW-SW skyline.\u00a0 Although Sirius is both larger and hotter than our own Sun, its brilliance is due mostly to the fact that it lies only 8.581 light-years from our solar system.\u00a0 Jurgenstock is only 2.9 miles wide, but is still close enough to us that its tiny disk might be able to blot out Sirius as it passes over the star.\u00a0 If Sirius is slightly wider than the current estimate of its diameter, or Jurgenstock is slightly smaller than anticipated, we might see a partial occultation; Sirius would dim noticeably, but not vanish entirely.<\/p>\n Because of uncertainties in Jurgenstock\u2019s positions, we can\u2019t predict the exact time when it will occult Sirius.\u00a0 To be on the safe side, look at Sirius for a few minutes on either side of the expected time of the occultation, 11:31 p.m.\u00a0 The star should wink out of sight abruptly for up to 1.8 seconds, although this duration might vary given the unknown shape of the asteroid.\u00a0 If you have a video camera mounted on a tripod that puts time stamps on each frame, you might be able to record this happening, which would be valuable for astronomers.<\/p>\n Jurgenstock, discovered on photographic plates in 1964, is a rather typical main belt asteroid, taking 3 years and 7 months to complete each circuit around the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.\u00a0 At a magnitude of only 16.7, it is too dim to be seen in most amateur telescopes, and is more than 1.8 million times fainter than Sirius!\u00a0 The planetoid was named after the German astronomer J\u00fcrgen Stock (1923-2004), who determined that the mountain of Cerro Tololo in Chile was the ideal spot to install giant telescopes in South America.\u00a0 At the time of occultation, the planetoid will be 189,238,718 miles from the Sun and 123,377,059 miles from Earth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jamestown\u00a0 (Tim Bratton)\u00a0 Dr. Timothy Bratton says,\u00a0the IOTA (the organization that computes asteroid and lunar occultations) just factored in the revised path of Sirius, which is a double star system (the primary star is accompanied by a small white dwarf).\u00a0 The dwarf’s presence has yanked the epicenter (common center of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jamestown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164969"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165119,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164969\/revisions\/165119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/164960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}