The occultation of HIP 106829 by Titania

The occultation of the bright star HIP 106829 (V= 7.2, type K0III, distance 170 pc) by the largest Uranian satellite Titania was successfully observed from Europe, several Atlantic and Caribbean islands, and from Southern America, around 2 UT, September 8, 2001. We report here preliminary results obtained from France (80-cm tel. Haute Provence, 100-cm tel. Pic du Midi), Aruba Island (20-cm tel.) and Ecuador (two 20-cm tel. and one 25-cm tel.), using CCD or video recordings, at repetition rates of several images per second. Various other observations, either visual or recorded, by amateurs from Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Azores, Venezuela and Tobago are still being compiled at the submission date of this abstract. Preliminary examination of the data indicates that no atmosphere at the microbar level is detected near Titania's surface. A detailed analysis is still necessary, however, in order to detect (or put an upper limit on) a hypothetical atmosphere at the 0.1 microbar level or less. The timings of the event at various sites provide the position of Titania with respect to HIP 106829. This will yield the observed-calculated (O-C) shift to apply to Titania position (using the URA027+DE405 ephemeris) in the ICRF/J2000 system. Finally, the finite duration of the immersion and emersion of the star behind Titania will be used to constrain the physical size of this red giant star. Supports from the Programme National de Planétologie (France), Paris Observatory and the NASA Planetary Astronomy grant NAG5-4214 are acknowledged.