The TNO December Rally 2013

Possible occultation of TNO 2002 VE95 visible from Europe on 22nd of December 2013

If you look for occultations by TNOs it is very hard to get around the work of Felipe Braga-Ribas and Bruno Sicardy. On their web-pages 3 occultations by TNOs can be found. One of them is likely to be observable from parts of Europe.

The TNO object is 2002 VE95, a Plutino, which has a resonance of 2:3 with Neptune. From observations with the Herschel Telescope it may have a diameter of around 250km. More information about the occulting object can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2855638%29_2002_VE95#cite_note-jpldata-3

The occultation, where the occultation track is closest for Europe, is on the 22nd of December. The occultation track based on latest astrometry is hitting southern Europe.

The graph of the occultations are taken from Felipe Braga-Ribas website.

All positions are J2000

For more infos and/or updates look at Felipe's website:

http://devel2.linea.gov.br/~braga.ribas/campaigns/

The event on the 22nd

will be around 0h15m for central Europe and will take a few seconds only. But the star is reasonable bright, aorund 16m in R-band.

Here you get finder charts for the event on the 22nd of December.

They are based on the UCAC3 and the DSS2R catalog. Generated by XEPHEM software.

10min

30 min Generated by Alfons Gabel

1deg

5deg

25deg

Occultation track for 2002 VE 95 on the 22nd of December 2013.

Prediction by Felipe Braga-Ribas

using the 60cm instrument of the Pico dos Diaz National Observatory of Brazil.

Prediction by Jose Luis Ortiz

Using a total of 58 images of 2002VE95 taken with the 1.5m telescope at Sierra Nevada Observatory on Dec 6,8 and 9.

The two predictions gave nearly the same occultation track, so observers in Northern Africa and Southern Europe should be alerted for observation.