Ursae Majoris, 123961, 7.8; 6, R Draconis, 163266, 7.6 (see chart, July 1993, page 70); 8, T Cephei, 210868, 6.0 (see chart, September 1994, page 41); 10, R Cassiopeiae, 235350, 7.0; 17, R Hydrae, 132422, 4.5 (see chart, May 1996, page 69); 20, R Andromedae, 001838, 7.0; 25, T Eridani, 035124, 8.0; 31, V Botis, 142539, 7.0. The data above are, in order: the day of the month near which the star should be at maximum brightness; the stars name; its designation number, which gives rough right ascension (first four digits) and declination (boldface if southern); and the stars typical visual magnitude at peak brightness. The actual maximum may be brighter or fainter and many days early or late. All predictions are by Janet Mattei using recent data of the American Association of Variable Star Ob-
1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
ADAPTED FROM MILLENNIUM STAR ATLAS
5343
oc
Asteroid occultation. On the evening of May
12th, during or just after twilight, telescope users in parts of the Southwest and Mexico can try timing the 11th-magnitude minor planet 25 Phocaea occulting an 8.3-magnitude star near Spica. The occultation should come around 2:53 Universal Time May 13th and last for up to 7 seconds. The tricky part will be finding the star quickly in the fading dusk assuming the sky will be dark enough at your location at all. North is up on the finder chart here, adapted from the Millennium Star Atlas. For more information see the February issue, page 86, or the asteroid occultation Web page of the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA), accessible through SKY Online at http://www.skypub. com/occults/occults.html. Late updates may also be on IOTAs voice recording at 301-474-4945 a few days or hours beforehand. IOTA hopes to notify as many observers as possible when a last-minute update brings an asteroid occultation path into their area. To get on the list for e-mail notification, send your location and e-mail address to dunham@erols.com. Lunar occultation correction. On the morning of May 9th the dark limb of the waxing gibbous Moon will occult a 4.8-magnitude star in Virgo. In the timetable in the January issue, page 97, the star is misidentified as (Iota) Virginis; it is actually l 2 Virginis, better known as 74 Virginis. Variable-star maxima. April 7, T Normae, 153654, 7.4; 14, T Camelopardalis, 043065, 8.0; 15, R Carinae, 092962, 4.6; 18, R Aquarii, 233815, 6.5; 20, R Octantis, 055686, 7.9; 22, R Caeli, 043738, 7.9.
Ph
calendar notes
servers, 25 Birch St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (http://
www.aavso.org/). Universal Time (UT or UTC) is used worldwide by all who need to avoid confusion between time zones. To convert a UT time and date to a standard time and date in North America, subtract the following hours: to get Eastern Standard Time, 5; CST, 6; MST, 7; PST, 8; Alaska, 9; or Hawaii, 10. To obtain daylight saving time (summer time), subtract one hour less than these values. If you get a negative number of hours, add 24; in this case the result is on the date before the UT date given. For example, 6:45 UT May 9th is 2:45 a.m. on the 9th EDT and 11:45 p.m. on the 8th PDT. You may find it easier just to remember when 0:00 UT happens in your time zone. This is on the previous date at 7 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. CST, 5 p.m. MST, or 4 p.m. PST. When daylight saving time is in effect: 8 p.m. EDT, 7 p.m. CDT, 6 p.m. MDT, or 5 p.m. PDT. A note on sky positions. In Sky & Telescope descriptions of where things appear with respect to the horizon or zenith are written for the worlds midnorthern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude are for North America, except as otherwise noted. Skyline: our telephone news service. To provide all readers with access to fast-breaking news such as comet and nova discoveries, Sky & Telescope maintains Skyline, a dial-up news service. The three-minute voice recording is updated every Friday afternoon. Call 617-497-4168. The Skyline text (Weekly News Bulletin) and much more can be found at our World Wide Web site, http://www.skypub.com/.