Electronic Telegram No. 3502
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION
CBAT Director:  Daniel W. E. Green; Hoffman Lab 209; Harvard University;
 20 Oxford St.; Cambridge, MA  02138; U.S.A.
e-mail:  cbatiau@eps.harvard.edu (alternate cbat@iau.org)
URL http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/index.html
Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network


OCCULTATION BY (134340) PLUTO
     A. S. Bosh, M. J. Person, and C. Zuluaga, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT); and S. Levine, Lowell Observatory, on behalf of the MIT-
Williams occultation group, announce results of Pluto astrometry during the
March appulse and request occultation observations in South America for the
Pluto occultation event predicted to occur on 2013 May 4 UT.  Observations of
the March 2013 appulse of Pluto and the star P20130504 were planned more than
six months ago, and a network of telescopes was established to collect data
for this event.  Based on data from the Keck telescope (A. S. Bosh and G.
Schaefer), the U.S. Naval Observatory at Flagstaff (H. Harris, T. Tilleman,
and M. Murison), Lowell Observatory (S. Levine and L. Bright), and SARA-S
(C. Zuluaga and S. Levine) -- analyzed by Bosh and Zuluaga -- they find that
the shadow path for the May 4 Pluto occultation has moved to the south and
is now centered over northern Chile, with solid body detections expected
from Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia for the northern limb, through Argentina and
Uruguay for the southern limb.
     The latest event prediction is available at the following website URL:
http://occult.mit.edu/research/occultations/Pluto/P20130504/index.html.  The
star has red magnitude 14.0, and the event velocity is 10 km/s.  With this
combination of event parameters, observations with telescopes of aperture
0.3 m and larger should yield useful data.  Observations in the near-infrared
are particularly useful.  Potential observers are encouraged to visit the
website for details (including finder charts and suggestions for observing
parameters) and to contact A. Bosh (asbosh@mit.edu) for more information.


NOTE: These 'Central Bureau Electronic Telegrams' are sometimes
      superseded by text appearing later in the printed IAU Circulars.

                         (C) Copyright 2013 CBAT
2013 May 2                       (CBET 3502)              Daniel W. E. Green