Subject: General information about 2015 IOTA predictions for the Mid-Atlantic region From: dunham@starpower.net Date: 12/31/2014 7:06 PM To: catondb@conrad.appstate.edu, goss.john@gmail.com, hegillespie@randolphcollege.edu, kcoles@iup.edu, kctina@earthlink.net, marklang@mindspring.com, jbrooks@johnsweb.com, raymond7419@verizon.net, bdbillard@comcast.net, john@menkescientific.com, campanr@gmail.com, rigel1@starpower.net, bobhberg@gmail.com, rbolster@erols.com, gchester@comcast.net, warnerem@astro.umd.edu, steve.conard@comcast.net, alintolea@gmail.com, schecae1@gmail.com, waynehwarrenjr@verizon.net, mark.a.croom@nasa.gov, mir16609@verizon.net, ckellington@gmail.com, Harry.Kat86@cox.net, jim@gerlach-tech.net, anthony.mallama@gmail.com, jckauer@verizon.net, mtcuba@physics.udel.edu, BHolenstein@gravic.com Your predictions for 2015; other IOTA news 0. Near-term events 1. Encouragement of electronic-only IOTA membership; the Journal of Occultation Astronomy 2. IOTA prediction files for 2015 (similar to those for 2014) 3. Worldwide lunar grazing occultation maps for 2015 ____________________________ 0. I'm going to distribute this general announcement near 0h UT, but the detailed predictions for your site will be distributed later tonight, hopefully before midnight EST, but after the start of the new year UT. So this just gives the highlights for tonight and tomorrow, since it's clear across the region tonight. For asteroidal occultations, we have one very late tonight, early tomorrow morning in twilight, involving the large asteroid Camilla that has a satellite, so observations will be useful. Here are the basics for the event, and for a fairly good one in North Carolina tomorrow night. I was hoping to observe the Seppina event from multiple stations, but don't have time to do that, needing to get caught up on other deferred work, and the Canadian weather forecast for astronomy shows that skies will be mainly overcast by then across Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee (but clear in our region, and most of Virginia, for tonight's Camilla event). 2015 EDT/ dur. Ap. Date Day EST Star Mag. Asteroid dmag s " Location Jan 1 Thu 6:26 2UC27854538 12.5 Camilla 1.4 8 9 PA,MD,DC,NJ,DE Jan 2 Fri 1:51 TYC47981572 10.9 Seppina 2.8 6 6 s,c,&wNC,nTN For details of the Camilla event, see http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/2015_01/0101_107_36026.htm . In the meantime, it's clear this evening for lunar events by the waxing gibbous Moon; glare from it will make observing occultations of the fainter stars quite difficult. Predictions of total lunar occultations that you might be able to observe from home for the next few nights are below: Date Day EST Ph Star Mag % alt CA Sp. Notes 2014 Dec 31 Wed 23:54 D ZC 494 8.2 84+ 43 40S A2 2015 Jan 1 Thu 18:29 D SAO 93805 7.0 90+ 44 59S B8 Jan 2 Fri 2:42 D SAO 93913 7.0 91+ 23 58S F6 mg2 10.6 separation .2" Jan 2 Fri 3:54 D SAO 93938 6.9 91+ 10 45S K5 Azimuth 284 deg. Jan 4 Sun 1:51 D ZC 934 6.4 99+ 52 62S K1 Terminator Distance 16" Jan 4 Sun 3:54 D ZC 944 5.9 99+ 29 39S A6 TmD 7",=dbl,sep .5" 141 Jan 7 Wed 5:55 R FX Cancri 6.7 95- 30 74S M3 AxisAng 264 deg.,ZC1320 These are for Greenbelt; predictions accurate to about 1s will be sent to you computed for your location. Below are predictions for lunar grazing occultations early in January: 2015 Date Day EST Star Mag % alt CA Location, Notes Jan 2 Fri 3:07 delta2 Tau 4.8 91+ 18 16N Hollins&Skippers,VA;KityHk,NC Jan 6 Tue 20:28 SAO 97952 7.4 96- 18 18N sStafrd,VA;BelAltn,sTrappe,MD Jan 9 Fri 23:04 58 Leonis 4.8 78- 16 5N Brookv,Watsntwn,EStroudsbg,PA Unfortunately, like the Seppina asteroidal occultation, thick clouds are expected to cover the path of tomorrow night's delta2 Tauri graze. Predictions for Mid-Atlantic events like the above are available through mid-January at http://iota.jhuapl.edu/exped.htm . The lists will be updated through mid-February either on Friday, or Monday next week. Sorry to be a little late with the predictions this time, but I've been able to do a little better than the last couple of years; at least now, I'm not hobbled with year-end work for the contract that I had with Russia, that wasn't extended past 2013. But early this month, we found a prediction error for accurate positioning with the graze predictions; we're rather confident that Dave Herald corrected the problem with his Christmas Eve release of version 4.1.4.0 of the Occult program that we rely on for lunar occultation events. Those are being of more interest, now that Kepler is searching for exoplanets in the Zodiacal regions, and their project wants to know if their target stars might have close stellar companions (that complicate their analysis for exoplanet signatures) that we might detect. So the Occult update now flags those stars in the total occultation predictions. So I waited until after our Christmas trip to run the 2015 predictions with Occult 4.1.4.0, and had a paper deadline that I had to meet earlier today, so only now am free to compose this, and start the 2015 prediction distribution to Mid-Atlantic observers. ____________________ 1. Join, or switch to, electronic only IOTA membership; Journal of Occultation Astronomy If you are currently a full IOTA member, please help us save trees by converting to electronic-only membership, only $15/year (for everyone) rather than $40/year for "paper" membership, and $45 for those outside the USA. Some on this list are not actually IOTA members; in that case, you are encouraged to join, or to join one of our affiliated sections, IOTA/European Section; IOTA/Middle East Section; or Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand/Occultation Section. Prospective members should visit IOTA's introductory Web site at http://www.occultations.org . For some time, we've distributed our annual predictions almost entirely electronically. For occultations of stars by asteroids, you are encouraged to use OccultWatcher, a free download from http://www.hristopavlov.net/OccultWatcher/publish.htm to learn about observable events near (filtered for) your location during the next couple of months. Some events, mainly of fainter stars, or in some cases of bright stars by small asteroids, are included that aren't in the annual local circumstance/appulse predictions noted below. A list of the better asteroidal occultations for North America are on pages 250 and 251 of the 2015 Observer's Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and you can also browse predictions (worldwide) on Steve Preston's site at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com (with links to his pick of the best events at the bottom of that page). Paperless membership will be more important now that the former "Occultation Newsletter" (ON) has been resurected and improved, now called "Journal of Occultation Astronomy" or JOA. The last four issues of JOA are now available in password-protected files at http://www.occultations.org/publications/newsletters . Issues of JOA at least before 2013, and all issues of ON, are freely available to all at that Web site. Since JOA is in color, physically printing it is more expensive, and our policy will be to supply only a black- and-white printed version for those who don't opt for electronic- only membership. A full-color printed version may be made available at some rather higher price, to be determined. The current issue says "$5.00 - $6.25 other" and we'll honor that, but that may be changed and clarified with later issues. Freely available now are issues of the Newsletter of the Middle East section of IOTA, available at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/ Most of the articles are presented in both Farsi and English. David ____________________________ 2. IOTA Occultation Predictions for 2015 For 2015, as for 2009 - 2014, the predictions are being distributed in three files, two of them for lunar total and grazing occultation predictions computed with Dave Herald's Occult 4 program. The three files are: Lunar total occultations in a plain text (.txt) file. Lunar grazing occultations in a .zip file described below. For 2015, as for 2010 - 2014, these now include much more detailed and more accurate predicted lunar profiles based on the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft laser altimeter data that were released early in November 2009. Also, .kml files are included that can be used with Google Earth to plot the graze paths (just the limit lines). Occult 4 also produces GoogleMap .htm files that some post on Web sites for plotting the graze paths interactively in great detail in areas that you can select (and two offset lines whose distance from the predicted limit the user can specify), but these can also be used by individual observers for this purpose. You can generate them yourself if you have installed Occult 4 on your PC (see below). The grazing occultation profiles should have a column of small bars on the left side indicating the number of expected occultations at the corresponding distance from the limit line, to help select the most productive observing locations. When trying to locate observers in narrow multiple events zones, it's important that the limit prediction (and the assosicated .htm file for Google Maps plots) use a height above sea level that is within 50m of the height where the observations will be made. To clarify the situation, Occult was modified in late 2014 to include a statement of the used height in the title produced by the .htm file. In mid December, we found that errors of up to 0.4 km occurred, due to larger than expected changes in the vertical profile scale that occur along a graze path. This error was fixed in the December 24th release of Occult (version 4.1.4.0), so as long as you have a predicted profile that was computed for a point within a degree of longitude of the observation site, and if the limit data used for plotting the path used a height above sea level within 50m of that of the planned observation sites, the prediction should be accurate for trying to hit a narrow multilple events zone only a few hundred meters wide. But for a few cases, it might be useful to send the information identifying the graze (date, star number, whether northern or southern limit, and the approximate Universal Time at the longitude of your planned site), and the longitude, latitude, and height above sea level of a possible observing site in what you believe is the predicted best multiple events zone, to the person who sent you the prediction, and they can help analyze the situation, and let you know if the location is all right, or if not, how far north or south of it the actual multiple events zone is likely to be. Due to possible small proper motion errors in the star's declination that have been magnified by the time since the 1991 epoch of the HIPPARCOS mission observations, the location of the best multiple events zone can be predicted to generally not much better than 200m. Asteroidal/planetary occultation local circumstance appulse predictions in a plain text file whose extent is your station number within your IOTA region, such as .011; you should rename it to .txt so that it can be opened, and printed, if desired, with Word or any other word processor. The file names of these are short, such as alcm15.011. Since 2013, a change of the program was needed as we switched to the UCAC4 star catalog for the predictions; UCAC2 numbers are still often used and the code U is still used for them, but for some stars, it is necessary to use the 9-digit UCAC4 number. For them, the catalog code is "4" and the first 8 digits of the number are given in the "Star number" column, while the last digit of the UCAC4 # is given in the "D" (double star code) column. Fortunately, use of UCAC4 numbers is rare, just for quite faint stars that are unlikely to be known double stars. In addition to the three individual files, two more plain text files giving general data for all of the currently predicted 2015 IOTA asteroidal and planetary (including planetary satellite) occultations are included in the attached files mp15u15.txt and mp15u10.txt (it includes accurate B1950 and J2000 coordinates of the occulted stars). The column headings at the top of these files are mainly self-explanatory. All plain text files should be displayed and/or printed with a fixed-space font such as Courier for the columns of the tables to line up properly. If you have Occult 4 installed on your computer (it's a free download from http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/occult4.htm ), you could compute your own predictions, including a local summary file for asteroidal occultations that is similar to the local circumstance/appulse predictions for these events. There's some advantage in that, over just using the files that we send you, since you can interactively click, for example, on a line of the lunar total occultation predictions to generate a view of the Moon depicting where the occultation will occur. For grazing occultations, the IOTA predictions sent to you will have the advantage of observer scan information at the bottom of the limit prediction .txt file (that is, a list of other observers within the their travel distances of the limit line) that won't be available if you compute the predictions yourself with Occult 4. _______ The graze prediction .zip file includes the following: A summary list of all the grazes selected for the observer, in a file named Date1 to Date 2 Graze Summary for [station name].txt The dates are in YYYYMMDD form. For each graze, a data file giving the path and other information about the graze, similar to the Grazereg predictions, but with no printer profiles, in a file named Date Graze of [star #] [station name].txt For each graze, an image file (.jpg) for the predicted profile, in a file named Date Graze of [star #] [station name].jpg . The profiles are similar to those of Grazereg, but being line drawings they are more detailed, showing a detailed jagged curve for the Kaguya profile. In the past, we displayed points from past observed grazes, which were important when we had only the relatively inaccurate Watts data. But now these points often cover the fine details of the accurate HiRes Kaguya profiles, and the observed points are less accurate since they were inevitably made at librations slightly different from that of the predicted graze, so we are no longer including them on the profiles. For each graze, a .kml file that can be used with Google Earth to plot the predicted limit line. Although useful to see where the graze path is located, I find more useful the GoogleMap Web sites such as Brad Timerson's described below that can be used to also specify offsets from the predicted limit line that can be determined from the predicted profile to define the better zones from which the most multiple events might be observed. And with the provided .htm file, you can create your own interactive detailed local maps of the graze zone. For each graze, an .htm file that can be used (automatically) with Google Maps to plot the predicted limit line (in green), and two dark gray offset lines whose distances from the limit in km you specify (and those values can be estimated, or measured, from the predicted profile). This is the best way to select observing sites for grazes, but as noted above, you need to be careful that the height above sea level used for the .htm file is within 50m of the height of the observation sites. The height value used in your predictions is the height of your home site, so if you observe at a distant location with a different height above sea level, you need to either use Occult to calculate a new limit prediction (and associated .htm file) using the height of your planned observing site, or ask the person who provided your predictions for that, specifying to him the date, star, whether n. or s. limit, and the height above sea level that you need. But see the caution above. A map showing all grazes for the time period in the region, not just the ones selected for the observer. The map has index numbers at the west and east ends of the paths, and includes as dots all stations in the .site file. The file name is Regional Grazes - xxxxxx.jpg where xxxxxx is the file name (without ".site") of the .site file for the region (such as argz10). For the whole year, the plot is usually so dense with lines as to be virtually useless. It includes dots showing the locations of all stations in the region for which predictions have been generated. A table of all the grazes for the time period in the region, not just the ones selected for the observer. The index # given on the map is in the first column, followed by the date & time of the event, the star numbuer and magnitudes, the percent sunlit (illuminated) of the Moon and whether waxing (+) or waning(-), the Elon(gation) in deg. from the Sun, and the cusp angle of the graze. The file name is Regional Grazes - xxxxxx.txt where xxxxxx is the file name (without ".site") of the .site file for the region. These predictions are all largely self-explanatory, being similar to those distributed in past years. They are described in the Occult documentation; if you have Occult 4, click on "Help" in the upper left, then click on the "+" to the left of "Lunar Predictions" to expand that, then click on the "+" to the left of "Graze Predictions". The main item there is the Graze profile; there isn't a separate description of the path information, since the column headings, etc., make that self-explanatory. ________________ PROCEDURES FOR REPORTING LUNAR OCCULTATION OBSERVATIONS All lunar occultation observations (grazing and total occultations) should be emailed to the IOTA Coordinator for your region; in North America, that is Derek Breit at breit_ideas@poyntsource.com. Several techniques are available for sending in observations from an Excel spreadsheet to a stand-alone program. However, the use of Occult 4 to generate your report is the preferred method. The new forms and procedures for North America can be found on a Grazing Occultation page that Brad Timerson maintains at: http://www.iota.timerson.net/ . INTERACTIVE DETAILED GRAZE MAP WEB PAGES This page also contains detailed information on many of the best grazes each month including a Google Map that can be used to zoom in on observing sites. Events that you want listed that may not be listed can be added if you email me with enough lead time. Brad can also supply graze profiles for specific longitudes and elevations. Mail your requests to: btimerson@rochester.rr.com . Be careful about the height above sea level of your planned observing area, as noted above. _____ Description of Local Circumstances of Solar System Objects with Stars The name and coordinates of the prediction location (station) are given in the header. Most of the columns are self-explanatory and are briefly described below. This is as it was written in 1999, but I've updated (to 2008/2010) the star catalog codes as they are currently used, including now UCAC4 designations used for some events. Before the predictions for 2008, all events were "unfiltered" except for those occuring in the daytime or below the horizon at night; those have always been eliminated, except for stars brighter than mag. 6.5 (those have been included in daylight), and also depending on the time uncertainty, some events a very short distance below the horizon, or with the Sun barely above it, have been included. For 2008, fainter events were eliminated with a formula depending on the telescope aperture, the limit being mag. 11.4 for an aperture of 10 cm (the default value, if IOTA doesn't know your telescope aperture), 13.0 for 20 cm, and 15.4 for 40 cm aperture. But still, all events passing these tests were included as long as they occurred above the horizon at night, resulting in predictions for many distant events, even on other continents thousands of km away, of no interest for virtually all observers. Starting with the predictions for 2010, distant events are now excluded, resulting in a list that I hope will be more useful for observers. Three distances are computed, and the event is retained if the distance is within a specified maximum for either one of them: 1. The distance of the central line in km on the sky plane is computed. If this is less than the observer's travel radius, or less than twice the radius for stars of mag. 10.0 and less (and also the object diameter is greater than 15 km), or less than 4 times the radius for stars of mag. 8.5 and less (and also the object diameter is greater than 30 km), or less than 4 times the radius for stars of mag. 6.5 and less (and also the object diameter is greater than 30 km), the event is retained; otherwise it is skipped. Note that the distance on the ground will always be greater than the distance on the sky plane due to projection on the Earth's surface, so this criterion is generous; there will be a fair number of events on the ground outside the observer's travel radius in which he/she may not be interested. In such cases, the observer can check the map for the event on Steve Preston's Web site at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com to see if he/she is close enough to the path to warrant observation, keeping in mind possible prediction errors (note the dashed lines indicating the 1-sigma limits on Preston's maps; even 2-sigma shifts are more frequent than one would statistically expect). 2. The distance in arc seconds is less than a value input to the program; we are using 0.5" or 0.2" for now (I recommend 0.2"). 3. The distance is greater than a specified number of the object's diameter; we are using 10.0 since few satellites of asteroids have distances from the primary greater than that. ___________ The columns are described below. DATE: U.T. date of the appulse (or occultation). PRIORITY CODE: Many of the occultations are by small asteroids that have little chance of happening at a given location, or involve faint stars that are more difficult to find, and that might be overwhelmed by the sometimes brighter asteroid for visual observers (see OCC. DMAG). So IOTA has added a priority code, given between the DATE and OBJECT: *: Best, within IOTA criteria, event within 1.2" + object radius. You should try to observe these events. x: As above, but event unlikely since sep. more than 1.2" + ob.radius. +: Below IOTA criteria, but by no more than 1.0 mag., and the event is within 1.2" + the object's angular radius. -: As above, but event unlikely since sep. more than 1.2" + ob.radius. blank: More than 1.0 mag. below IOTA criteria, or DMAG 0.5 or less. * and - were used in previous years, but now that more accurate predictions are possible with Hipparcos and ACT-relative astrometry, some fainter events might be considered, so + and x are now added. OBJECT: The first ten characters of the object's name. SAO #: 0 is given if the star is not in the SAO catalog. D: Double star code, same as used in Occult or PC-Evans lunar occultation predictions. But for UCAC4 stars, the last digit of the 9-digit UCAC4 number is given here. S: Source catalog for star, same as used in Table 2 of planetary, cometary, and asteroidal occultations given in Occultation Newsletter (will be available for 1999 sometime in January). Only 5 codes are usually used for the 2008 and later predictions: H, Hipparcos (Hip2); T, Tycho2; U, UCAC2 (or 2UCAC); P, PPMXL (see above for it); and 4, UCAC4. Star Number: The star's identification (source catalog number) in the catalog that was used for the prediction. For the Tycho2 catalog (code T), the 8-digit number given, xxxxyyyy, when expanded in full should be xxxx-0yyyy-1. For UCAC4 stars, the first 8 digits of the 9-digit UCAC4 number is given. STAR MAG: Star's visual magnitude. OCC. DMAG: Drop in combined brightness in magnitudes if an occultation occurs. Visual observers will probably not be able to detect events if this is 0.5 or less, and even 1.0 or less are hard in bad seeing. DUR SEC: Expected duration of a central occultation in seconds. U. T.: The Universal Time of closest approach as seen from the station. DISTANCE: This gives the distance of the object center from the star at the time of closest approach as seen from the station. It is given in arc seconds as seen in the sky, in kilometers measured in the fundamental plane (which will always be less than the distance on the ground), and in object diameters. Positive distances indicate that the object center should pass south of the star as seen from the station (so the occultation shadow should also pass south of the station). EPHM.ERR.: Ephemeris error, given in arc seconds in the sky, and in minutes of time (the value in arc seconds divided by the angular speed). Next are given the altitude above the horizon (ALT.) and azimuth (AZ., counted eastward from due north) of the star, the Sun, and the Moon at the time of closest approach at the station. The elongations (ELG) of the Sun and the Moon from the star are also given. The last column gives the percent of the Moon's apparent disk that will be sunlit, with + indicating waxing and - indicating waning phases. Much has changed in the field of predicting, observing, and reporting asteroid occultations over the past few years. If you have had little experience in this field, you are encouraged to read through the message carefully and going to each of the websites mentioned. Observing asteroid occultations is an exciting addition to your normal lunar occultation observations and provides needed information about asteroid shapes as well as stellar and asteroidal astrometry. The preferred location for finding predictions is Steve Preston's webpage at: http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/ (but OccultWatcher, which uses Preston's web site as its main "IOTA feed", is the easiest to use since it filters events for your location; see below). Once you have an event in mind, Derek Breit maintains a page of detailed information at: http://www.poyntsource.com/New/Global.htm that includes interactive maps of the path (like Occult Watcher, that's useful for selecting mobile station sites); site lists (these give, including possibly for your observatory, or one nearby, the distance from the central line, the formal probability of an occultation, and altitudes of the star and the Sun); and a list of pre-point stars. All observers of asteroid occultations are encouraged to download and install the program OccultWatcher. This free program allows each individual to screen all worldwide events according to user- defined criteria. You can identify which events you are interested in observing as well as see others that will be observing the same event. A map is created showing each observers' chord so that duplication can be minimized; that's great for coordinating observational efforts, to make them most effective. The author has also added mutual satellite events involving Jupiter, Saturn,and Uranus to the predictions available. Download this program from: http://www.hristopavlov.net/OccultWatcher/publish.htm Effectively, the IOTA local circumstance/appulse predictions provide a long-range (full year) list of events in your area somewhat similar to what OccultWatcher provides. But OccultWatcher will always include the latest prediction updates that can't be included with the IOTA annual predictions, and fainter events are added quarterly that aren't in the IOTA appulse predictions. There are several websites maintained by Brad Timerson detailing various aspects of asteroid occultations. The Worldwide Homepage contains links to all the major reporting groups around the world. There is also additional information on the observing of asteroid occultations, software and equipment links, links to YouTube videos of unusual events, and much more. http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/ The North American Homepage is designed to provide information specifically for North American observers of asteroid occultations. There are links to Results from previous years, the webpage containing Report Form templates and Directions for their use, links to other Prediction pages, and much more. http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/NA/ The page checked out most often by observers is the one containing the Results of observations. Links to Prediction maps, profiles created from the observations, and maps of observer locations can be found on this page. http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/Results/ Of special note is the page containing Report Form templates, at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/observations/Forms/AsteroidReportForms.html The templates are Excel spreadsheets that make extensive use of drop-down lists to insure that all information crucial to a complete analysis of an event has been reported. Observers are encouraged to use this Excel form (also can be used with OpenOffice) to report their observations. Starting in 2011, individual event report forms will no longer be available, but you can use the "Blank Excel Report Form, No Directions" that you can get on the upper right part of the page. If you can't use the Excel file, there is a blank text form available on the webpage for users to fill in. All Reports are now emailed to a special account for archiving. That email address is: reports@asteroidoccultation.com Users of OccultWatcher should note that once an event has been observed, you can now pre-fill the Asteroidal Occultation Report Form providing you have Excel on your computer. All that is needed after the pre-fill is for you to complete the Form by filling in details of the observing conditions and the times you wish to report. A version using OpenOffice will soon be available. Much information about observing occultations of all types is in "Chasing the Shadow: The IOTA Occultation Observer's Manual" available for free download at http://www.poyntsource.com/IOTAmanual/Preview.htm . IOTA's Main Website: http://www.occultations.org Lunar Occultations and Free Occultation Software Site http://lunar-occultations.com/iota/iotandx.htm Finally, everyone involved in any field involving occultations is asked to join the Yahoo Group, IOTAocculations. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IOTAoccultations/ It is here that the latest information on what others are doing, observing techniques, etc. can be found. ____________________________ 3. Spectacular lunar grazing occultations during 2015 Maps and predictions for lunar grazing occultations of the brighter stars during 2015 will soon be available (probably next week) at http://iota.jhuapl.edu/GRAZEMAP.HTM . This includes worldwide grazes of stars and planets of magnitude 3.0 and brighter; grazes of stars brighter than mag. 7.0 in southern Canada, the continental ("lower 48") USA, most of Mexico, Cuba, and the Bahamas [the maps and summary table are also in the RASC Observer's Handbook for 2015, pages 170-178]; and grazes of stars of mag. 6.0 and brighter in Europe, Iran, eastern Australia, and New Zealand. There will also be special maps and data for grazes during the two total lunar eclipses of 2015. Besides the maps and summary tables, tables of limit line coordinates and circumstances are given at 1-degree intervals of longitude. For those in North America, links to interactive Google maps of the paths of grazes, allowing you to zoom in on them in great detail to select observing sites, during the next 4-6 weeks can be found on Brad Timerson's graze map page at http://www.iota.timerson.net/ . _____________________ Good luck with your observations during 2015! David Dunham, dunham@starpower.net, 2014 December 31 Attachments: OBS14D31.TXT 31.7 KB mp15u10.txt 148 KB mp15u15.txt 177 KB