Occultations of HIP and UCAC2 stars downto 15m by large TNO in 2004-2014

Abstract

Occultations of stars brighter than 15m by largest TNOs are predicted. Search was performed using the following catalogues: Hipparcos; Tycho2 with coordinates of 2838666 stars taken from UCAC2 (Herald, 2003); UCAC2 (Zacharias et al., 2003) with 16356096 stars between 12.00 and 14.99 mag to the north from -45 declination. Predictions were made for 17 largest numbered transneptunian asteroids, recently discovered 2004 DW and 4 known binary Kuiper Belt objects. 64 events occuring at solar elongation of 30 deg and more are selected, including exceptionally rare occultation of 6.5m star by double (66652) 1999 RZ253 on 2007 October 4th. Observations of these events by all available means are extremely important since they can provide unique information about the size of TNOs and improve their orbits dramatically.