Friday, February 6, 2009

Sign flip

While attempting to predict the actual events should look like (coming soon to the web page!) we came to an initially horrifying but ultimately only slightly amusing conclusion. First, the horrifying part: there was no eclipse of Namaka by Haumea on 1/31.

What???? We had a half a dozen telescopes on the scene watching nothing? Well, luckily, no.

We just had an error in our projection prediction. Namaka wasn't eclipses by Haumea, Haumea was shadowed by Namaka.

Phew.

All of the times listed on the web site (and thus all of the times you would observe from a particular spot) were all correct, it's just that the event we were seeing was the opposite.

As of now they have all been fixed.

In the end, getting all of this right is critically important. The interpretation would be completely off if we had it backwards. But for now, I think, no harm has been done. And, I think, everythingis now right.

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