Asteroid Occultation Report Forms

Updated Wednesday, October 09, 2024

These Forms are to be used ONLY by observers in North America and Australasia!

Observers in other parts of the world have their own reporting systems in place.

These Forms work with Excel and the latest version of OpenOffice.  They are Mac and PC compatible.

Please read the Directions for using these forms carefully.

If you cannot use the Excel forms, use the "old-style" text form.

For users of OccultWatcher, PLEASE use the Add-in that automatically populates the Asteroid Report Form with information about the event.

With the Report Form still open, fill in the pertinent information about the timing of the event and sky conditions.

Once Saved, this Report Form is ready to be uploaded to IOTA Hub.

OccultWatcher does NOT automatically submit this completed Report Form!

Very Important!!

For those who will be downloading the Report Form on this page:

You can do this in two ways:

1) Click on the file you need and choose "Save" and then place the file in a directory on your computer, or

2) Right-click on the file, choose "Save Target As" and then save the file to a directory on your computer.)

Start Excel or OpenOffice and Open this Saved File

Insert your location specific data including the Predict Time at the top.

If you have a "Miss", be sure the upper left drop-down shows "Negative" and "Was this a Miss?" at the bottom is "Yes"

Take care to use the drop-down menus properly when choosing the format for latitude and longitude.

Be sure you have included the Asteroid #, Asteroid Name, Star Catalog (from drop-down list), and Star Identifier (using proper format).

Save As:  Replace the YYYYMMDD with the appropriate Date using this format shown.

Place the Asteroid Number in place of the "NUM" in the file name.

 Place Your Last Name in place of LastName in the file name.

Replace "Pos" with "Neg" if you observed a Miss.

For example:  "20181221_101_Helena_George_POS.xls"

or:  "20181221_101_Helena_George_NEG.xls"

Submit your Report Form and associated files via IOTA Hub:

1. Go to iota-hub.com and create an account or sign in

2. Click "New Observation"

3. Upload your Report Form and associated files, and submit the observation

Please include the following files:

1. The XLS spreadsheet file described above
2. The CSV file from PyMovie, LiMovie or Tangra
3. The PYOTE log file, or .pdf sqWave.summary report file from ROTE, or .png report file from Occular, or .txt report from AOTA
4. The .png light curve graph from PYOTE, or .pdf light curve graph from ROTE, or .png light curve graph from Occular, or .png light curve graph from AOTA
   
5. .pdf error bar.summary.report from ROTE (if ROTE used for light curve analysis)
   

File Naming Instructions:

For an observation with a single reporting site (most common)

YYYYMMDD_AstNo_AstName_ObserverLastName_pos/neg.xls

Example: 20181221_101_Helena_George_POS.xls

For an observation with a multiple reporting sites

YYYYMMDD_AstNo_AstName_ObserverLastNameX_pos/neg.xls

Example: 20181221_101_Helena_George1_POS.xls

Where: X = a sequential or non-sequential site number whenever there are multiple sites by the same observer

If there is only one site, X may be omitted (automatically omitted by OccultWatcher)

Alternative formats for multiple sites include:

YYYYMMDD_AstNo_AstName_ObserverLastName_X_pos/neg.xls

YYYYMMDD_AstNo_AstName_ObserverLastName(X)_pos/neg.xls

Report all problems, including omissions and errors to:  Webmaster

Remember, you can always use one of the Blank Report Forms for your observations.