2009 05 03 event

Almost all observers who attempted Haumea last Saturday had significant weather problems, from the southwestern US to Brazil. Hawaii was clear, and data were collected, but it was almost certainly after the event had already taken place. It appears we have no detection and no particularly useful upper limits.

We have had a pretty rough time of it lately, and, to date, we have no detections. I would have hoped with the northern spring weather coming around we would have a detection or two by now, but, no.

We only have a few good shots for the rest of the season:

• 5/13: First good occultation, visible from eastern Asia and Indonesia and [barely] Australia. We know of attempts from the 1.8m Bohyun telescope in Korea, the 2.0m Girwali telescope in India, and the 2.3m ANU telescope in Australia.
• 5/12: A very deep transit, visible from eastern Asia and Indonesia and [better this time] Australia. The 2.3m ANU and the 1.8m Bohyun telescope are observing.
• 5/31: Haumea is now up for only a fraction of the night, making observations harder. This event is a ~5 hour long occultation. Observations are being attempted from the Nordic Optical Telescope (Canary Islands), the 1.8m Pico des Rios in Brazil, and the 6.5 m Magellan telescope in Chile.

After May the amount of time that Haumea is up for the night gets small so observations get quite difficult. There are another ~4 events that are worth attempting to observe, but if we don't get anything in May we are going to be in very bad shape!