Full occultation video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKLxV4UavA4&t=20sIOTA Results of the Grazing Occultation of Aldebaran March 5, 2017
http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/AldebaranGraze_05March2017/Late on Saturday, March 4th Shannon Calvert, Bob Meadows, Dan Wright and I drove up to New Hartford to observe a grazing occultation of Aldebaran by the moon. While most of the US was going to see Aldebaran disappear behind the moon, for those in an approximately 1-mile wide path at the edge of the disappearance, Aldebaran would disappear and reappear several times as it passed behind mountains and valleys on the moon's edge.
We selected a location about 250 yards south of the Northern limit to maximize the possible number of occultations we might see. After getting permission from the property owner, we set up behind Mainstream Canoes and Kayaks on a blustery 7-degree night. It was well worth the effort as we recorded 6 occultations.
Kevin Green forwarded the videos we captured to IOTA's Brad Timerson who made a light curve of the occultations and then applied the data to a moon profile. This will allow IOTA to include our observation with others captured of the event. We understand from Brad that our graze observation and those of the previous 2 Aldebaran grazes show Aldebaran slightly below the lunar limb meaning that Aldebaran is not exactly where we think it is and an adjustment to its catalog position will have to be made.
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