Occuttau'on3Newsteter Volume III, Number 5 September, 1983 Occultation Newsletter is pub?ished by the International Occultation Timing Association. Editor and Compos- itor: H. F. DaBo11; 6 N 106 white Oak Lane; St. Charles, IL 60174; U. S. A. Please send editorial matters, renewals, address changes, and reimbursement requests to the above, but for new memberships, new subscrip- tions, back issues, and any special requests, write to IOTA; P. 0. Box 3392; Columbus, OH 43210-0392; U.S.A. FROM THE PUBLISHER this page. William Stein, Fredericksburg, VA, has volunteered to take over Berton Stevens' job of This is the third issue of 1983. maintaining IOTA'S machine-readable records for pro- ducing address labels and station card input for lu- Please note the changes wrought by the recent chang- nar grazing occultation and local planetary/aster- es of officers; see the masthead and IOTA NEWS. The oidal appulse predictions. Since some software dc- Tinley Park address should no longer be used. The ve1oµnent is needed, Stevens will continue to do St. Charles address should be used for editorial this work at least for another month. When Stein matters, renewals, address changes, and reimburse- assumes the job, he will update the files according ment requests. The Columbus address should be used to data supplied by DaBo11. for new memberships, new subscriptions, back issues, b ' W, , and any special requests. A copy of IOTA'S by-laws is enclosed with this is- sue, for manbers. Also enclosed with this issue, o.n.'s price is $1.40/issue, or $5.50/year (4 is- for members, is a ballot, and envelope for sending sues) including first class surface mailing. Back it to the Executive Secretary, Charles H. Herold, issues through Vol. 2, No. 13, still are priced at 9207 Kirkmont, Houston, TX 77089. You do not need only $1.00/issue; later issues @ $1.40. Air mail to send the ballot if you plan to attend IOTA'S shipment of o.n. back issues and subscriptions is meeting in November (see p. 100), since it will be a 45¢/issue ($1.80/year) extra, outside the U.S.A., triennial election meeting. Although there is es- Canada, and Mexico. sentially no choice on the ballot, members are urged to complete and send them to Herold, since we need IOTA membership, subscription included, is $11.00/ to have ballots cast by 30% of the membership for year for residents of North America (including Mexi- the election to be valid. Please vote in favor of CO) and $16.00/year for others, to cover costs of the revisions to the bylaws ; these were needed overseas air mail. European and U. K. observers since the bylaws had to be written hurriedly in or- should join iota/es, sending DM 20.-- to Hans-j. der to include them (as required) with our applica- Bode, Bartold-knaust Str. 8,.3000 Hannover 91, Ger- tion to obtain tax-exempt status before an August man Federal Republic. 31St deadline. Since the application was filed, members of the board of directors decided that the IOTA NEWS changes given on the ballot were needed to manage IOTA more efficiently. David W. Dunham Most of the graze reports which were not processed The major news about IOTA is described in the arti- by HMNAO were transcribed to the forms of the Inter- cle about our incorporation and finances on p. 98. national Lunar 0ccu"ltation Centre (ILOC) a few We were fortunate in that the fees charged for the months ago. During July, Richard Taibi completed <-- incorporation were less than $300, well within our the considerable task of duplicating the reports and budget and not requiring any additional contribu- sorting them into chronological order; they include tions, as was indicated might be the case in the some events observed as early as 1974, although most last issue. The officers of IOTA are listed in Ma- were observed after 1976. The reports were sent to 1ey's and Phelps' article about the incorporation. ILOC by the U. S. Naval Observatory. ILOC sent me a The most important change is the Corresponding Sec- letter thanking us for the reports, and indicated retary, who will be Mark Allman. He will serve as that some changes had taken place. Akio Senda has the main point of contact for IOTA, mainly proces- taken over Dr. Kubo's job of Director of ILOC, which sing requests for papers, special predictions, and is now in the Geodesy and Geophysics Division of the inquiries from those seeking to join IOTA or sub- Japanese Hydrographic Department, rather than the scribe to o.n. He will take over those duties from Astronomical Division. I do not know whether the John Phelps in late October, when IOTA's new ad- Astronomical Division was eliminated or simply ab- dress, P. 0. Box 3392, Columbus, Ohio 43210-0392, sorbed by the Geodesy and Geophysics Division. Un- U.S.A., will appear in the November issue of Sky and fortunately, this will mean even further delays in Telescope then being distributed. Since H. F. Da- the distribution of residuals to observers. Senda Boll will maintain the IOTA records as one of his apologizes for these delays, and asks for "even duties as Treasurer, changes of address and station greater cooperation." data, and membership and subscription renewals should be sent to him; see FROM THE PUBLISHER on Guillermo Ma11Cn, Cerrada Providentia 43, 10200 Mex- 98 V . « ico D.F., telephone 905,595-6368, most likely will What would this mean to IOTA'S members? In the USA, be the Mexican coordinator for the 1984 May 30 annu- expenses incurred in connection with a non-profit lar solar eclipse. Americans and others planning tn tax-exwpt organization may be tax deductible. In observe this eclipse from Mexico, where the weathe' this connection, we offer the following exerpt, prospects are better than in the U.S.A., should COn- which is an interpretation of such a guideline. It taCt MallCn. is up to each IOTA member to determine whether his participation in an IOTA expedition or effort falls Extended-coverage USNO total lunar occultation pre·· into the category of a charitable contribution. If dictions for the remainder of 1983 finally were com- you have any doubts, you should consult a tax ac- puted and distributed to observers in August, in countant. IOTA cannot offer any legal opinion, but time for the early.September Milky Way passages for based on the interpretation in this February 9, 1983 most Americans. If you want these predictions and Standard Federal Tax Report Bulletin, it would ap- have not received them, write to me at P.0. Box 74&. pear that expenses incurred in connection with oc- Silver Spring, MD 20907, U.S.A. The most interest- cultation expeditions and eclipse expeditions may be ing event included in these predictions is the pas·· tax deductible by those persons who have the appro- sage of the waning crescent moon across scores of priate background, experience, or aptitude. This faint stars in M-35, the morning of Septanber 29th. would serve to make doing scientific observational as seen from Hawaii and the Pacific coast of North astronomy more affordable and, we hope, create new America. The extended-coverage predictions are interest in pursuing grazes, asteroid occultations, meant to supplement the usual USNO total occultation and solar eclipse north/south limit edge phenomena. predictions for those with access to large tele- scopes; if you want the extended predictions, you also should have the regular USNO predictions, ob- ¶8626 Research Expeditions: May a Volunteer tainable from Marie Lukac, U.S. Naval Observatory, Deduct Cost as Charitable Contribution? Washington, DC 20390, U.S.A. Unfortunately, I did not have time to process any more of the Southern Various tax-exmpt organizations enlist the aid of Astrographic Catalog data, so the extended-coverage volunteers to assist in scientific and historical predictions include only C-catalog stars described research projects that are conducted throughout in o.n. 2 (14) 188 and 2 (16) 222. I hope to be the world. May a taxpayer who acts as a volunteer able to process more of the S.A.C. data and compute for a tax-exempt organization and pays his own more comprehensive extended-coverage predictions travel to one of these research projects claim the early in 1984. cost as a charitable contribution? This article sets forth the standards that would be used by the The paper, "Solar Radius Change Between 1925 and IRS and the courts in making this determination. 1979" by S. Sofia, A. D. Fiala, j. B. Dunham, and me was published in the 1983 August 11 issue of Nature. Donated Services We showed that, on 1979 February 26, the solar radi- us was approximately 0!'5 (375 km) smaller than it Subject to certain limitations, taxpayers are al- was on 1925 january 24, according to our analysis of lowed a tax deduction for charitable contributions timings of the total solar eclipses on those dates. that they make to or for the use of certain quali- Both durations timed near the center of the paths fied tax-exempt organizationsl Basically, a tax- and observations made near the path edges to deter- exenpt organization is considered to be qualified mine their widths gave essentially the same result. if it is organized and operated exclusively for the timings of both eclipses are listed in tables. religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or Unfortunately, when the tables of observations were educational purposes or for the prevention of cru- typeset, Nature gave all the longitudes in degrees, elty to children or animals.