Reporting Lunar Occultations ILOC will cease their work with lunar occultations in March 2009. IOTA has agreed to take over this work starting 1 September 2008. This changeover became a good opportunity for adjustments to be made in the ILOC format to better match current observing techniques and issues. All future observations would have to conform to this new format. To that end, many individuals have been involved in creating new observational formats, archival formats, and ways to report observations. All exchanges of files will now occur via email. Different regions of the world will use “region-preferred” methods to send observations to Local Coordinators. For observers of lunar occultations, both total and grazing, several methods will be available to report observations. Each observer is free to use whatever method they are most familiar with – all will provide the Local Coordinator with the information they need to reduce observations. - The Lunar Occultation Observations editor within OCCULT. Those familiar with the operation of this editor within OCCULT may want to use this method. - Dave Herald has created a stand-alone application called LunarReport which is the Lunar Occultation Observations editor taken from OCCULT. It is a much smaller download (~64kb zipfile) than a full OCCULT download. Again, those familiar with OCCULT may find this application best for them. - A new Excel-based Lunar Occultation Report Form. This Form is based on the widely accepted Asteroid Report Form now used in North America and Australia/New Zealand. Worksheets for Observer Information, Telescope Information, and Observations make up the Form. The Form makes extensive use of drop-down lists with common terminology. If you are comfortable using the Asteroid Report Form, you might want to try this new Form. - LOW, the Lunar Occultation Workbench, by Eric Limburg. In common use in many parts of the world, Eric has worked to allow this program to create reports in the new ASCII format. Users familiar with LOW should use this program for reporting observations. Using any of these tools, observers will report their lunar occultations to a Local Coordinator. The Reports will be in the form of an ASCII file if OCCULT, LunarReport, or LOW is used. If the Excel form is used, the Local Coordinator will receive an Excel .xls file and then use a macro to convert this data into the ASCII format. The Local Coordinator will then use OCCULT to reduce the observations and return the results to the observer. Any concerns or errors with the observations will be worked out at this level. An exception to this is in the reporting of Grazes. In this case, the Graze Coordinator should collect all observations, fill in the report form of choice, and submit the results to Mitsuru Soma directly. The Local Coordinators will forward this ASCII file to the North American Regional Coordinator. The Regional Coordinator will collate the results, resolve any remaining issues, remove duplicates, and upload the results to a dedicated webpage. The URL’s of these Regional Lunar Occultation Results pages have yet to be determined. The Regional Coordinator will forward all completed archive files to the Global Coordinator for final review, archiving, and reporting to the Astronomical Data Center. Local Coordinators have yet to be named. All Regions will be seeking volunteers to be Local Coordinators. Regional Coordinators in Europe, Asia, and South America will be announced when ready. Australian Regional Coordinator: Dave Gault lunarocc@tpg.com.au New Zealand Regional Coordinator: Brian Loader moonocc@gmail.com North American Regional Coordinator: Derek Breit breit_ideas@poyntsource.com Japanese Regional Coordinator: Kazuhisa Miyashita lunocc@optik.mtk.nao.ac.jp African Regional Coordinator: Dave Gault lunarocc@tpg.com.au South American Regional Coordinator: Derek Breit breit_ideas@poyntsource.com Grazing Occultation Coordinator: Mitsuru Soma Mitsuru.Soma@nao.ac.jp **Double Star Observations: Brian Loader moonocc@gmail.com Global Coordinator Dave Herald: DRHerald@bigpond.net.au **NEW: Added April 3, 2009. All observations containing double stars should ALSO be sent to Brian Loader in addition to your normal Coordinator. Reports will be submitted on a regular basis, most likely monthly. That, too, needs to be finalized. The stand-alone application LunarReport, and the new Excel-based Lunar Occultation Report Form will be available on the IOTA website in the near future. They are both available now at the website shown below. Also shown are the websites for downloading OCCULT and LOW. Observers are encouraged to begin trying out the different reporting techniques immediately so that they can decide which is best for them. For example, some may find the Excel form easier to use for reporting Grazes since it allows for copying and pasting repeat entries. Those same observers may find the LunarReport application works well for them for normal occultations. Dave Herald’s stand-alone LunarReport zip file is available at: http://www.timerson.net/IOTA Excel-based Lunar Occultation Report Form now available on: http://www.timerson.net/IOTA A link for Directions is also available on this page. OCCULT download available here: http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/occult4.htm LOW (Lunar Occultation Workbench) download (88Mb) at: http://low4.doa-site.nl/index.html Additional Notes: 1. Starting 1 September 2008, all lunar occultation reports will use these new procedures in North America and Australia/New Zealand, only. 2. Starting 1 September 2008, all unreported observations should be submitted to a Local Coordinator and NOT to ILOC. If no Local Coordinator is available, please hold observations until one is named for your location. 3. An announcement will be made letting observers know when Europe is ready to use this new reporting procedure. 4. Asia and Africa need to assign Local/Regional Coordinators. 5. Under NO circumstances are reports to be sent to both ILOC and IOTA