THE UPDATED PATH

On the evening of 2003 Jun 24 UT, the 76 km diameter asteroid (124) Alkeste will occult the mag 3.6 star Beta Virginis for observers along a path across the northern South Island of New Zealand and sourthern Australia.

In the case of an occultation, the combined light of the asteroid and the star will drop by 9.2 mag to 12.8 mag (the magnitude of the asteroid) for at most 3.8 seconds.

Preliminary track information and charts is presented below:

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Astrometric updates such as these should not be taken as definitive, but rather only as an indication of where the true track may lie relative to the original predicted track. Observers must bear in mind that later astrometry, in which the target star is measured in the same field as the asteroid, may still reveal substantial changes to the predicted track and time of the event. For this reason it is most important that observers far from the predicted track still monitor the event.