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Five clearly observed positives were recorded in Iran for this event that
crossed Africa and the Middle East.
Atila Poro was the team Leader and Dave Gault
provided some long distance coaching.
All used visual timing with stopwatches or recorders.
View the updated prediction.
Observers: 1 G Rostami,Taft (Yazd State), Iran 2 G Poro,Sang bast Village,Mashhad,Iran ( Time checked with GPS unit) 3 G Salimi,Abravan Village,Mashhad,Iran ( Time checked with GPS unit) 4 G Ashkar,Fars, Shiraz, Iran 5 G Lavari,Boshehr, Iran 6(P) Prediction Three other groups were in Saadat'shahr and Yazd and Boshehr. They couldn't see the occultation because they had equipment problems, all of them could find the star in less than 3 minutes (I'm sure). For Shiraz observation, I think the occultation duration time is correct but for starting occultation he registered is about 30 second before the occultation event! For Mashhad groups, they set time with GPS and also checked it with other sources like radio and internet. When they observed occultation a person took movie and also record observers sounds. After they observed the occultation they checked the time given by assistant and movie and sound. This gives us more confidence in those times (sites 1 and 2). There were in fact several teams at each location and the results summarise these.
Discussion:
The circle above is plotted at the expected 172 km diameter of Diotima.
It is clear that the clocks used for timing are not closely calibrated to each other.
As noted above the chords 2 and 3 near Mashhad used a GPS for synchronisation and appear most consistent.
Adjusted view:
In this second version the times for chords 1,4,5 have been shifted
by -47, +16.5, -46 seconds to make the centre their observations agree with 2 and 3.
This makes chord 4 at Shiraz agree very well with 2 and 3 at Mashhad.
The other two chords seem short and are likely caused by lack of experience in looking for brightness changes.
The team are to be congratulated for an overall good result which shows
what can be done by a well organised team with visual obseravtion alone.
We look forward to many more succeses for the IOTA-ME team.
With 5 chords we can be confident that the path of Diotima and that it was
close to the predicted line.
For more information and team photos please refer to IOTA-ME site
Observational Data:
Observation details for MP (423) Diotima By Star TYC 1961-01236-1 On 2010-12-10 at 01:12:00.0 _______________________________ Observer Group E - Farzad Ashkar Location Fars, Shiraz, Iran Longitude +52:29 Latitude +29:35 Altitude 150 m Datum WGS84 Telescope Newtonian Aperture 20 cm Seeing Steady Clear Camera Type Camera Delay Timing Stopwatch Visual, no PE applied Disappearance 01:09:38.00 Reappearance 01:10:05.00 Comments: _______________________________ Observer Group A - Atila Poro Location Sang bast Village, Mashhad, Iran Longitude +59:45 Latitude +35:59 Altitude 998 m Datum WGS84 Telescope Dobsonian Aperture cm Seeing Steady Clear Camera Type Camera Delay Timing Stopwatch Visual, no PE applied Disappearance 01:12:22.64 Reappearance 01:12:48.60 Comments: Team 1: M.Hossein Tale Zadeh Lari (observer) , S.Majid Ghasemi (recorder). Team 2: A.Hasan ali Zadeh haghighi (observer) , Hossein Davari (recorder) Team 3: H. Alizadeh Koshki (observer), S. Mahmoud Hosseini (recorder). _______________________________ Observer Group B - Fatemeh Salimi Location Abravan Village, Mashhad, Iran Longitude +59:58 Latitude +36:04 Altitude 998 m Datum WGS84 Telescope Newtonian Aperture cm Seeing Steady Clear Camera Type Camera Delay Timing Stopwatch Visual, no PE applied Disappearance 01:12:25.24 Reappearance 01:12:52.00 Comments: Team 1: Mehdi Hashemi (observer) , Maryam Dehghan & Zahra Khakzadi (recorders). Team 2: Ali Fatollah zadeh(observer) , Fatemeh Salimi (recorder) Team 3: Ahmad Nezam (observer), Zeynab Momen Zadeh & Akram Farzaneh (recorders). _______________________________ Observer Group C - S.Ghasem Rostami Location Taft (Yazd State), Iran Longitude +54:13 Latitude +31:44 Altitude 1531 m Datum WGS84 Telescope SCT including Cass and Mak Aperture 20 cm Seeing Steady Clear Camera Type Camera Delay Timing Stopwatch Visual, no PE applied Disappearance 01:11:32.00 Reappearance 01:11:43.00 Comments: Team: Ali Ommani (observer), Ali Ahmadi, Mehdi Karim Pour, Yaser Ashor'zadeh & S.G. Rostami (recorders). _______________________________ Observer Group D - A.Reza Lavari Location Boshehr, Iran Longitude +51:26 Latitude +28:29 Altitude 150 m Datum WGS84 Telescope other - specify below Aperture 15 cm Seeing Steady Clear Camera Type Camera Delay Timing Stopwatch Visual, no PE applied Disappearance 01:10:22.00 Reappearance 01:10:37.26 Comments: Team: A.Reza Lavari (observer), Ahmad Nasiri, Nasir Darvish'vand & Yosef Lavari (recorders).