This is a likely do-able event, bright at 12.2 but will require 1x most likely to do well. But if there's no wind, there will be no moon and skies pitch black, likely do-able at 1x.
Alt=45, Az=98 in Cancer.
The centerline is 4.19 miles south of the intersection of Hwy 190 along Panamint Valley Rd, to a little shallow hollow on the east side of the road. The rank is not great but the RUWE is 0.9 which is good. We may only try this event if we are late in leaving and / or lose too much time and can't get into the valley before dark.
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I expected to be driving through Panamint Valley 3 hours before the event, and with enough daylight to explore Mosaic Canyon and enjoy dinner with the TDRC group. But due to upexpected delays, Kirk and I arrived at this part of Panamint Valley at, as it turned out, just the right time to go ahead and try this event. I set Kirk at the little dirt turn-out visible on the GE maps, and I set up about 0.4 miles north of him, on the east side of the Panamint Valley Rd.
I set up on the east side of the van to shield from the wind, which was pretty successful I got a recording at 1x of the target and saw a distinct drop to zero for about 0.2s at the predicted time while watching live. Because the terrain here was so featureless, I decided to use the IOTA VTI position switch to get my coordinates. I got the elevation off the Google Earth map.
long= 117 23 02.43"
Lat = 36 17 37.20"
Elev= 479m
Remarkably, the path seemed to be quite accurate in a north-south sense, with Kirk getting a 0.20 s event from the centerline, as predicted, and I got a 0.09s event from near the northern limit. But the event was 1.7s early, which is 8 diameters early. The predicted event time was (rounded to the nearest second, as OWc does) 7:10:38pm PST.
NIE test = 8.6 sigma
magDrop report: percentDrop: 100.0 (magDrop cannot be calculated because A is negative)
DNR: 2.86
D time: [03:10:36.2452]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0040} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0107} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0232} seconds
R time: [03:10:36.3383]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0040} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0107} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0232} seconds
Duration (R - D): 0.0931 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0059} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0136} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0302} second
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I used the van to block the wind, deploying out of the side door. |
Apr 2026 - It was pointed out that the data was more likely to be done at 2x setting, since there was a correlation between the 1x field mode points that is higher than expected if actually done at 1x as my notes said. Still, I had in my notes and memory that I'd done this at 1x. Since it was at the start of a very busy weekend in the desert filled with deadlines, it's possible my memory was off. In any case, Dave Herald would not sign off on it until it was analyzed at frame mode 2x setting. Then send it in to Ernie Iverson. So that's been done below:
In PyOTE I first minimized the light curve (minus the event ) metric with smoothing (smoothing length = 40), then further minimized in the time direction (7 fields), which did improve the metric. I re-did the light curve from scratch, rather than re-Pyote the original PyMovie output. It still found the event, specifying an event between 2 and 22 points. The duration is now 0.08s, and still aligns well with Kirk Bender's longer event from 0.4 miles away.
NIE Test: 5.5 sigma significance
magDrop report: percentDrop: 100.0 (magDrop cannot be calculated because A is negative)
DNR: 2.95
D time: [03:10:36.2452]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0073} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0192} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0378} seconds
R time: [03:10:36.3252]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0073} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0192} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0378} seconds
Duration (R - D): 0.0800 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0106} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0241} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0438} seconds
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Observed from the small indent into the desert of loose sandy tracks on the west side of Panamint Valley Rd near the centerline of this event.
I got a 0.2s positive for 1998 MH43, Feb.13, 2x at Panamint Valley Rd. Curve is noisy, but I got an event at the predicted duration and near predicted time, although about 2s early. There was some wind shake, but it smoothed out on a reference star. I found a small 2.0 size mask in PyMovie gave the best results with a
PyOTE NIE sigma distance of 14.1.
magDrop report: percentDrop: 94.3 magDrop: 3.106 +/- 1.312 (0.95 ci)
DNR: 2.40
D time: [03:10:36.1404]
D: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0083} seconds
D: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0244} seconds
D: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0579} seconds
R time: [03:10:36.3442]
R: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0083} seconds
R: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0244} seconds
R: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0579} seconds
Duration (R - D): 0.2037 seconds
Duration: 0.6800 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0128} seconds
Duration: 0.9500 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0305} seconds
Duration: 0.9973 containment intervals: {+/- 0.0617} seconds
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