Ordinary Meeting, 2002 February 23

Occultation Videos

Mr. Elliott emphasised modestly that occultation observation was primarily for fun, and not useful science. He then showed a clear video by Ray Emery of the occultation of Jupiter on January 26, which had been filmed despite poor weather. The speaker suggested that a mountainous region on the Moon should be visible in profile as Jupiter illuminated the lunar terrain from behind, and this was indeed visible in the video footage. The speaker went on to report that the occultation of February 23 had been too low in the sky for him to observe.

The speaker reported that interesting results had been derived from the observations of the occultation of an unnamed bright star by Uranus' satellite Titania in 2001 September. Measurements of the shape and possible atmosphere of Titania would soon be processed, although timings had already indicated a 1% correction to the ephemeras of Uranus. In space this corresponds to a shift of a few thousand kilometres for Uranus.

Following the applause for Mr. Elliott's videos, the President welcomed Mr. Melvyn Taylor to give the afternoon's final talk on binocular astronomy.