What is human existence? It turns out it’s pretty simple. We are dead stars, looking back up at the sky.
Hello, my name is Monica! I am going to be running this occultation blog, which centers on occultations: those at WAS, those at other related locations, and those anywhere else really. Right now, I conduct asteroid research with several other peers. Some of these peers join me at Westport, or conduct research in tandem at the University of New Haven. This blog serves to dicuss our goals, our progress, our results and analysis, and finally, a shallow pool for those looking to dip their toes into the world of occultations. So, let’s start by familiarizing you all with who we are and what we do.
💫Who We Are
We are a collection of amateur astronomers (most of us) based in Connecticut. A lot of us are in high school or college, so that being said, if you are a young whippersnapper looking for more research experience, we will welcome you with open arms!
💫What we do now, and in the future:
We record asteroids passing in front of stars, analyze the results to find where the starlight dips, and send the data to NASA. The whole thing with occultations is that the more locations you have, the better the data is. Multiple locations allow us to make occultation chords, which plot the orbit and shape of the asteroid. Currently, we have two locations: WAS and University of New Haven. We plan on expanding to other observatories, like New Pond Farm in Redding and John J. Mcarthy Observatory in New Milford. Because we plan on having so many locations, it’s crucial we induct more researchers into our little circle. This is another goal of ours for the summer.
💫Ok, but why?:
Good question! Occultations help us determine the orbit and size of asteroids in our solar system. But on a deeper, more theoretical level, occultations can help us determine the nature of dark matter. Dark matter is the name for the phenomena that occurs when we observe galaxies. Normally, we expect the galaxy’s innards to spin faster than the matter on the edge of the galaxy, but this doesn’t happen! The edges of a galaxy spin just as fast as the insides. So, occultations can eventually help us observe physics and discrepancies between theory and reality on a smaller scale – not our entire galaxy, but simply our solar system.
Here are images that shows best how multiple locations (chords) can help determine the shape of an asteroid. The asteroid casts different shadows to multiple locations, meaning the duration of the event varies with location as well. Combining the data from multiple locations, we can determine what the asteroid may look like.
💫Resources and Contacts:
The following includes a few links on the resources we use to observe asteroid occultations.
Occult Watcher: Occult Watcher notifies us on upcoming occultations in our local area. It is a program that you must. download on your computer.
https://www.occultwatcher.net/publish.htm
Pymovie: Pymovie is the program we use to analyze our recordings. There ARE ways to download it on a Mac, but we recommend a different brand of computer that can handle the processing.