Minor Planet Occultations

(103) Hera on 16 April 2021

A difficult occultation, where star and minor planet were of similar brightness (mag +13.1 and +13.6 respectively) and so there was only slight dimming of the star during the occultation. My thanks to Eric Frappa for his expert analysis of the lightcurve. Maximum duration was predicted to be 3.8 seconds and with a number of other positive results matched well with the existing model of the minor planet's shape, see below.

Screenshot of drift-scan measurement using Scanalyzer (see page by John Broughton, Reedy Creek Observatory, Australia here). The start and end times here are only provisional and were revised by Eric Frappa before publishing on the Euraster web site.