[Lvas] shortwave radio-John Boron

[Jay & Annette]

Rob, thanks for the explanation.  Sounds interesting, however work beckons 
too early to go out tomorrow night.  Thanks again, Jason.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob" <scopegeek at gmail.com>
To: "Las Vegas Astronomical Society" <lvas at lvlug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 11:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Lvas] shortwave radio-John Boron


> Jay & Annette wrote:
>> David, how does having a Shortwave radio help in the occulting asteroid,
>> listening to WWV?  I know WWV has the time measurements, but am curious 
>> now
>> as to what's up?  Sorry for the bad pun.  I just recently built a VLF
>> receiver and have another one to build from NASA (INSPIRE project) for
>> listening to the Earth and natural phenomenon.  Jason
>>
>>
> Jason,
>
> Let me attempt to answer your question.
>
> When observing an occultation, especially if you are alone, it is
> difficult to observe an occultation and look at your watch to get an
> accurate time when the star disappears and then reappears.  With WWV and
> its continuous time hack, you can observe the occultation while
> recording WWV on a voice recorder.  When the asteroid blocks the star,
> the observe announces "Out" loud enough that the recorder picks up the
> announcement with WWV in the background.  When the star reappears, the
> observer announces "Back", again loud enough to be recorded on the
> recorder.  With the WWV time hack in the background, this produces an
> accurate time recording of the star disappearing and reappearing.
> Without an accurate measurement in time, the observation would be
> invalid - not usable for determining the size of the asteroid.
>
> It is possible to use an atomic watch, but you would have to have
> someone announce the time while someone else is observing.  You can't do
> both by yourself and get an accurate recording of the star's
> disappearance and reappearance.  And there is also no guarantee that
> even atomic watches are on the exact same second of time.  WWV provides
> a constant time hack for all observers that might be observing the
> occultation and contributing their observation data to the research 
> effort.
>
> I hope this quickly answered your question.
>
> Rob Lambert
>


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