Asteroid Occultations

Tutorial

TUTORIAL TO BECOME A SHADOW HUNTER

First time observing an occultation of a star by an asteroid? Read this page to master your Unistellar telescope and join our team of shadow hunters.

PRE-OBSERVATION

1 – Select Your Mission

An asteroid occultation is a unique event to record, and to observe one you need to be in a specific area on Earth. First, you need to select a mission visible to your location. This is easy using the Unistellar Scientific Events Prediction Page! This page will show you all of the occultations visible to your observing site within a given date range. It is also accessible through the Unistellar app Home or Science menu by clicking on the “Find Predictions” icon.

To use the Predictions page to observe occultations, first make sure that the “Asteroid Occultations” button is highlighted in yellow. In the “Location of the observation” box, input the address or coordinates of the location on Earth from which you will be observing. Lastly, in the “Starting Date” box select the date and time after which you would like to start searching for occultations to observe. The default is the current time (now).

You are now ready to search for missions by clicking the “Generate” button, which will display a table of events visible to your location. 

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Asteroids

2 – Read The Prediction

Each row will include the target name and the start time of the event (in your time zone) under “Local Time”. For detailed information, simply click on a row you are interested in! This will reveal the visibility map for the event. Note that the expected path of the asteroid’s shadow is marked by the orange lines. The closer you are to centrality, marked by the red line, the better chance you have of detecting the occultation.

 

Below the map are all the recording parameters necessary for your observation – the Coordinates, Exposure Time, Gain and Duration. All these parameters are also saved in a Deep Link that you can click to open the Unistellar app and fill the recording parameters automatically . It is the last icon of the row, illustrated by a phone.

    OBSERVATION

    3 – 10 Minutes Before Your Occultations

    Once your Unistellar telescope is set to observe the night sky, you can use the scientific mode of the Unistellar App.
    It is time to point to your target. Two options:

        A. Deep Link method: The quickest way to find your target is to use your smartphone to click on the Deep Link associated with your event. It will automatically open the Occultation tab of your Unistellar App and fill up coordinates of the target and its recording parameters. When the Right Ascension box and Declination box are filled with the correct coordinates, click on Goto to point to your target. Once Goto is done, if the Record duration, Exposure time, and Gain are correct, click on Save.

        B. Manual method: Open your Unistellar App, click on the Science menu and select the Occultation tab. Enter the Right Ascension and Declination and click on Goto to point to your target. Once Goto is done, enter the Record duration, Exposure time, and Gain and click on Save.

    Capture The Universe use cases
    Asteroids

    4 – Launch Observation

    At the start time, click on the Record button to start the observation.

    During the observation keep an eye on your star – you may see it briefly disappear in the live view due to the passing asteroid. Once the observation is over, a final message appears: “Recording complete”

    POST-OBSERVATION

    5 – Share your data

    Once you are at home, please upload your data to our server. Our team of scientists will analyze your observation to check if you detected the occultation. If you need help, please read these guidelines on “how to upload my data”.

     

    6 – Tell Unistellar you participated

    To make sure your contribution is properly processed and you are credited for the result, always fill out this Occultation Observation Report. It asks for your name, the serial number of your telescope, and the name of the scientific mission you just accomplished. We will send you the result of your scientific mission through our Slack communication platform within 24 hours.

     

    We will send you the result of your scientific mission through our Slack communication platform within 24 hours.

    Great Work, Citizen Astronomer.

     

    Sky Map