The First Guilan (Province) Astronomy Summer School

6-7 August 2014
Faculty of Sciences, University of Guilan, Rasht

Organizers: The first Guilan astronomy summer school is organised by North Star Scientific Research Institute (NSSRI), International Occultation Timing Association Middle East section (IOTA/ME) and Research Association on Meteor and Meteorite(RAMM).
Subjects: Variable stars, Exoplanets, Meteor showers, Meteorites, Occultations
For registration: www.nssri.ir


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Exoplanets and Life in Turkey

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(198) Ampella connects IOTA-ES and IOTA-ME

June 23 at 23h (UTC) the minor planet Ampella willoccult the star TYC6825-00475. The prediction shows the shadow path calculated by Steve Preston crossing Germany… and Iran. (See figure A) The time difference between both observation sites will be only some minutes.

This will be a chance to an intensifiedcooperation.
A detail of the shadow path running over Iran shows figure B. The (Green) center line crosses Qazvin (Iran) - about 140 km north-west of Teheran. So there might be in this region some observers to join. The both blue lines are the (predicted) limits of the shadow path.

I think around Qazvin one can find suitable observation places. Figure A and B are from a publication by Derek C Breit, details you may find at: www.poyntsource.com/New/Global.htm under “Ampella”.
The prediction from Steve Preston (now president of IOTA/USA) shows a probability of over 50% near the (green) central line. Please consider: Our models of astronomical events try to calculate what will happen in nature. But our basic data are always with limited accuracy and rounding. So we can help with our observations to extend the knowledge in any situation. You may find further details at www.asteroidoccultation.com
But one has to prepare for this observation very carefully. The occultation will be near the horizon, the time will be about 23:00h UTC, (local time in Iran then 02:30 on June 24 !!). And because brightness of star and minor planet are not very different, the drop of light during the occultation will be only 0.5 Mag.
To observe this “visibly” is nearly impossible. The best way to get a reliable measurement will be a telescope more than 20 cm and a video camera that can display a star with 11 Mag. You should be sure that your system is powerful to get this. In the meantime you should train to find the star just north of Scorpius.
This short introduction has two intentions:
FIRST: to inform you about this occultation
SECOND: To find participants who are willing to get in contact to me – by e-mail and by mobile phone. I would like to get in contact to you (in English) via mobile phone during the time of observation. At your region the occultation will be about 4 minutes earlier. Via phone you explain what you are seeing and I will explain some times later what I am seeing. That is my idea of a direct collaboration.
Last but not least: we need a clear sky to observe all this, if the weather in my region will be cloudy there will be other observer at distant places to support the collaboration under a clear sky (I hope that).
All our data will be collected by Eric Frappa, France. For that it is necessary to get the coordinates of your observation place, the time of the event correlated as good as possible to UTC and some information of your equipment. But that should be declared when we interchange e-mails.
Try hard to join this observation – but in any case there will be another chance.

Dr. Eberhard Bredner Ginsterweg 14 59229 Ahlen-Dolberg; GERMANY
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An Asteroid Occultation in Iran and other countries in Middle East

There is an asteroid occultation on the evening of Tuesday 27 May 2014. The asteroid Arethusa (95) will be the star Hip 45163 occultation. The asteroid Ranking 99 and 198 kilometers in diameter and visual magnitude will be 12.5 of category belt middle between Mars and Jupiter. Start the privacy of Kansas in the United States and India will be the end of it.
Something that is noticeable in this occultation:
- Its high rank asteroid that is 99.
- The magnitude asteroid is 12.5 that it causes to be seen by powerful eyes.
- The magnitude star occult is 8.4 that it find star very easy.
- The duration is expected to be about 7.9 second and star will drop 5.6 magnitudes during the process.
As seen from Shiraz, the time of central occultation is 17:24 UT. On this night the moon is on below horizon. The occultation path will be possible to observe in country Jordon, Kuwait, South Iran, Pakistan and India. Coordination took place between the Middle East and North America IOTA, observing the events in Iran and team supervision by Mr. Paul Maley (Vice-President of IOTA), which will be based in Kuwait, jointly done.

Hojatola Hekmat’zade
President in Occultation and TNOs Dep. IOTA/ME
hekmat@iota-me.com
+989364206300


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A Report About Annual Meeting of IOTA (2013)

The 31th annual meeting of international occultation and timing association took place on 4-6th (Friday to Sunday) October 2013, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In this meeting, Dr. Marjan Zakerin presented a talk entitled “Scientific Results of IOTA-ME and Recent Activities” as a remote speaker on Saturday at 10:30 am local time (6 pm according to Tehran time zone).
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Venus Transit Meeting Was Held (2012)

Venus Transit Professional Meeting was held on Wednesday 4 July 2012 at the conference hall of Iranian Space Agency in Tehran. The meeting began at 10:30 a.m. and ended at 2:30 p.m. Thirty-one representatives of groups that are active in the Venus transit event and the elders of Astronomical Society, who were active in this event, were invited to attend this meeting. This is the report of the Venus transit meeting. The meeting was progressed in this way.
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