OCCULTATION PREDICTIONS FOR 2003

To all occultation observers,

Attached to this message are your compressed (zipped) prediction files for 2003. I
suggest you print a hardcopy of this message because it has valuable instructions
that you will may need at a later time.

It is better to create 3 new directories (folders) before extracting your prediction
file sets. You can use any directory names just as long as you know where your
extracted files are. The 3 folder names that I use for my predictions are: \grazes,
\locm and \totals just to make things simple. From your email browser, highlight one
of the attached files, click "save as", choose its proper destination folder in the
popup window and then save it. Repeat the same for each of the two remaining data files.

Each observer has 4 attached compressed (zipped) files:

List.com..........a very handy DOS text file viewer. Especially useful for the wide
                   132 column text files (your LOCM file and ACLPPP predicted profiles.
                   Using DOS, the List command will let you view these files without
                   any line wrap arounds. It will scroll up, down, right and left.
                   Very useful especially when you just want to glance at any lunar
                   profile image. To use List.com, place a copy of this utility in each
                   of the 3 directories you created for your predictions. Those who
                   are knowledgable with MS DOS can place List.com anywhere on their
                   hard drive and then add its path in the autoexec.bat file.

GRZnn.zip         Contains all your graze limit line predictions - where nn is your
                   Florida station number. It also contains all the associated lunar
                   graze profiles generated by the more accurate ACLPPP program.

LOCMnn.zip        Contains your single LOCM file (Local Circumstances) containing
                   information for all 2003 close asteroid appulses of stars, or in
                   some cases, predicted asteroid occultations for your home station.

Totalnn.zip       Contains all 2003 total lunar occultations for your home station.

Extract (unzip) (expand) these files in each of your three folders (directories). If
you have trouble unzipping these files, I can send you the more user friendly self
extracting zip (*.exe) files upon your request.

Your graze folder will contain many files - separate files for each graze event.
Graze.000 is your 2003 summary of grazes. I would suggest printing a hard copy of this
summary so you can pick the grazes that you want to attempt so you can make plans to
observe your "pick". Also you will save a lot of paper by printing only the predictions
for grazes that you will actually want to try.

Every graze in your summary (graze.000) will have an index number for it on the left
side of the page. For example if you want to attempt graze number 17, your graze.017
file will contain all your limit line plot points, central graze time as well as
moon altitude, %sunlit, star magnitude, etc. Your graze summary also has a list of highly
favorable grazes, greater than mag. 4.5, that are outside of your travel radii. Each of
your graze.* files also contains the predicted lunar profile generated by the same
GRAZEREG limit line prediction program. The more accurate ACLPPP predicted lunar profiles
are in separate files, but are easily matched to their respective grazes by the index
number. For example, profile.017 has the correct ACLPPP generated profile for graze.017.
The ACLPPP program generated profiles are the ones that IOTA prefers to use because
their accuracy and readability are superior to the GRAZEREG generated profiles.

For view only of your predictions/profiles, it is a lot faster to open a MS DOS window,
navigate to one of your prediction folders (directories) and simply type LIST. A blue
background screen will appear with a list of all files in that directory. Use the up/down
arrow key until the file you want to view is highlighted, hit the enter key, and you will
see the contents of the chosen file. This utility program is especially useful for viewing
the wide (132 column) prediction files on your 80 column wide PC monitor screen. You can
arrow right, left, up or down in order to view the information that would be truncated if
the DOS TYPE command were used instead. Hit the ESC key to go back to the file listing;
hit the ESC key again to get back to the DOS prompt. Type EXIT on the DOS command line
to properly get back to Windows. DO NOT try to exit DOS by closing the DOS window because
an error message will occur.

MS Word is recommended for printing of the wide formatted 132 column predictions
(ACLPPP profiles, LOCM data files, and your total occultation predictions)
in the landscape paper printing mode. Using a text editor or notepad to print on 8 1/2 by 11 inch
paper in the portrait mode will result in text line wrap around making them extremely difficult to
read.
Use MS Word for printing of your total occultations, your LOCM data, and for select
ACLPPP profiles for grazes that you actually want to observe. Your graze limit line files
(graze.xxx) can be printed as is (80 columns wide), portrait paper mode without having to
use MS Word.

Use the following steps to print the above predictions using the landscape paper mode:

- Using MS Word, open one of the wide text files (e.g., profile.xxx)
- Click on VIEW and select page mode so you can see the "paper" you are printing on.
- Click on EDIT and click SELECT ALL to highlight all of the text.
- Click on FORMAT, select FONT and set it to Courier new, regular and font size 9.
- Click on FILE, then PAGE SETUP, click on the margin tab, set top, bottom and right
   margins to 0.6 inches. Set the left margin to 0.3 inches. BE sure to set the header
   and footer to zero inches.
- Still in the PAGE SETUP window, select the PAPER SIZE tab, leave the default size at
   8 1/2 by 11 inches and select LANDSCAPE. Hit OK on the PAGE SETUP window to get back
   to the document.
- Click on FILE and then click on PRINT.

You don't really need to save the document on your hard drive once it is printed out - hit
NO when prompted to save changes while exiting MS Word. You don't want to overwrite these
data files!  An option is to do a "SAVE AS" and use a different file name if you really
want to keep a copy of your wide prediction file in a readable landscape paper mode.

More details on the use and format of these occultation predictions can be found on
the various IOTA websites.

Regards,

Tom Campbell
6408 Eugene Ave.
Tampa, FL 33619
(813) 621-6879
 

IOTA-International Occultation Timing Association, Inc.

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