Well, we saw it – or rather we saw it, then it winked out, and then it was there again. Magnitude 10.5 TYCO 0528-00946-1 star in Aquarius winked out for about 2 seconds while Gary Jacobson, Ken Cantrell, Marion Hochuli, Tom Calderwood and I watched.
Joel Hastings Metcalf
This was an occultation by 694 Ekard, a 12.6 Mag asteroid discovered by Joel Hasting Metcalf on November 7, 1909 from Taunton, Massachusetts. Metcalf went to Harvard Divinity Schoolwhere he studied to become a Unitarian minister, serving in Vermont, Taunton and Winchester, Massachusetts and finally in Portland Maine. He died in 1925 just after his 59th birthday, but not before discovering several comets, including 23P/Brorsen-Metcalf and 97P/Metcalf-Brewington. He also discovered 41 asteroids, several of them bearing names obviously linked to his alma-mater and areas where he served as minister.
To capture this event we used a borrowed Sony Camcorder (thanks Glenn Meurer!) and recorded the event on both VHS tape and MiniDV tape. Audio timing signals from WWV were broadcast onto the tapes.
Gary Jacobson
Also successfully witnessing the event were ATMoB members Mike Mattei from his observatory in Littleton, and Mike Hill from his home in Marlborough.
In just a few hours another asteroid shadow will pass our way – this one named Eurynome. Glenn and I are setting our alarms for 3am in order to record this early morning event.
Bruce
November 9th, 2009 - 09:40
Joel Hastings Matcalf did much more than discover many comets (at one stretch three in two days!) and asteroids (41): he was also a noted amateur telescope maker, responsible for the 10 and 16-inch astrographs now in storage at Harvard’s Oak Ridge Observatory. At the time of his death he was making a 13-inch triplet. It was completed by Lundin of the Alvan Clark and Sons firm, and THAT objective was used to discover Pluto.
November 9th, 2009 - 10:46
Very good information Ken! Thank you for adding more background on Metcalf.
January 21st, 2010 - 23:03
Bruce, The 13-inch Pluto astrograph was a scaled up version of the Type IA Cooke Lens designed by H. Dennis Taylor. Several members of the Antique telescope Society verified this. The Cooke was used at Maria Mitchell Observatory until its retirement in 1992.
It would be interesting to know if Metcalf or Lundin had anything to do with the optical design and final prescription of the Pluto lens.
The MMO lens incorporated an aspheric surface on the central flint element to reduce spherical aberration. I believe Taylor used star testing to achieve that feat.
Paul