------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 2996 2014 Apr 17 18.39UT Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, Basingstoke, Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074 INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK Backup: gmh@wdcc1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.theastronomer.org ------------------------------------------------------------------- OCCULTATION BY ASTEROID (241) GERMANIA 2014 APRIL 18 Tim Haymes, has drawn our attention to an occultation event by the 184km diameter asteroid (241)passing in front of a magnitude 11.6 star in Gemini on 2014 April 18 at 20:59UT (21.59BST). The circumstance seem favourably with the predicted track passing NW to SE across the centre of the UK to include Northern Ireland, southern Scotland, all of northern England, north Wales and south-east England. The maximum length of disappearance should be 8.5 seconds for someone in the centre of the occultation path and with a magnitude drop of about 2.1. Due to the faintest of the star, visual observers need to use an aperture of 0.25-m to see the disappearance/reappearance. Tim advises further details can be found at: http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/2014_04/0418_241_32426.htm Please e-mail your results to Tim at: tvh.observatory@btinternet.com with a copy to Mark Kidger (see first page of the magazine). NEW METEOR SHOWER: APRIL ALPHA CAPRICORNIDS P. Jenniskens, SETI Institute, relays that a report by Touru Kanamori (Tokyo, Japan) indicates detection a new meteor shower radiating from near the star alpha Cap between 2014 Apr. 7d16h59m and 7d19h33m UT, first noticed by SonotaCo Video Meteor Network member Masayuki Shimoda. Orbital elements calculated from triangulated video observations by numerous SonotaCo Network members and by members of the Sanbonmatsu high school show fifteen meteoroid orbits radiating from R.A. = 304.0 +/- 3.4 deg, Decl = -12.6 +/- 1.6 deg (equinox 2000.0) with geocentric velocity 69.1 +/- 1.5 km/s. Fifteen out of a total of 73 observed multi-station meteors were assigned to this stream. The mean orbital elements have semi-major axis around 85 AU, q = 0.80 +/- 0.07 AU, e = 0.98 +/- 0.13, argument of perihelion = 124 +/- 10 deg, Node = 17.66 +/- 0.04 deg, and i = 167 +/- 6 deg. No meteors were detected in the period Apr. 4-6 (118 orbits) and Apr. 8-10 (53 orbits). Jenniskens adds that no candidate shower members were detected among 334 meteoroid orbits measured in the solar longitude interval 16.0-19.0 deg in 2011-2012 by the California All-sky Meteor Surveillance project, which implies that this is a periodic shower. The meteoroids move in a long-period comet orbit, suggesting that this event was a meteor outburst due to the crossing of a one-revolution dust trail of a yet-to-be-discovered long-period comet. If so, M. Sato (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) calculated that this dust trail was in the earth's path also on Apr. 7 UT in 1980, 1990, 2001, and 2004. Future encounters may happen on Apr. 7 UT in 2025 and 2032. Guy M Hurst