First Observations of a Stellar Occultation by KBO (50000) Quaoar from MIT's George R. Wallace, Jr., Astrophysical Observatory

Details First Observations of a Stellar Occultation by KBO (50000) Quaoar from MIT's George R. Wallace, Jr., Astrophysical Observatory First Observations of a Stellar Occultation by KBO (50000) Quaoar from MIT's George R. Wallace, Jr., Astrophysical Observatory

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21822413s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #224.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Here we report the first recorded observations of a stellar occultation by Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) (50000) Quaoar. We detected a single-chord stellar occultation by Quaoar of a magnitude 16.2 star designated 26029635 UCAC2 (2MASS ID 1275509401), which occurred on 11 February 2011 UT.
The prediction of the occultation was made using long baseline astrometric observations of Quaoar from several sites as part of the MIT Planetary Astronomy Laboratory's continuing effort to improve KBO positions for occultation prediction. The successful observations were made with a Celestron C14 0.36 m telescope and an SBIG STL-1001E CCD camera on a Paramount ME robotic mount. These observations show that a relatively accessible level of astronomical equipment, of the class often used by amateur astronomers, can be used to record KBO occultations. The data were taken at MIT's George R. Wallace, Jr., Astrophysical Observatory in Westford, MA. A light curve was generated from the data using aperture photometry on the individual images and is presented here. This light curve is being analyzed by Person et al. (this meeting) to provide constraints on Quaoar's size. We also discuss various observing strategies that could be used in the future to optimize the data from this type of event.
This work was supported in part by grant NNX10AB27G to MIT from NASA's Planetary Astronomy Division. Student participation was supported in part by NSF's REU program, MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, NASA's Massachusetts Space Grant, and the George R. Wallace, Jr., Astrophysical Observatory.

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