Observations of the Occultation of the Star TYC 1318-01031-1 by Asteroid (52) Europa on September 9, 2020

Abstract

This article presents the results of observations and data processing of the occultation of star TYC 1318-01031-1 by asteroid (52) Europa conducted at multiple sites. Data from both professional astronomers and experienced amateur observers are utilized. Professional observations have been conducted with an 80-cm diameter telescope equipped with a QHY174M GPS camera, which provides precise UTC time-stamping for each exposure via its integrated GPS receiver. Amateur observations have been carried out with various telescopes and cameras, with the data recorded in video format. The video recordings were processed using a unified methodology to derive the photometric occultation light curve. Ingress and egress times of the occultation at each observing site are determined from the extracted photometric light curves of TYC 1318-01031-1. A proprietary method is applied to combine occultation chords from geographically dispersed sites where observations have been acquired independently [1]. Subsequent processing employs the proposed combination method to compute each site’s offset from the occultation path centerline. Chords of asteroid (52) Europa for each observing site are then calculated from the measured ingress and egress times of the occultation. Calculated asteroid chords are compared to the 3D shape model of the asteroid from the Database of Asteroid Models from Inversion Techniques (DAMIT). This approach yields strong validation of the technique and demonstrates that amateur observations, taking into account potential UTC time-stamping errors, can be used to reconstruct asteroid shapes. The results also confirm that the shape and dimensions of asteroid (52) Europa in the DAMIT database are accurate.