Word: aldebaran
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...before dawn, a lot of sleepy-eyed folks switched on their televisions to the Weather Channel, powered up their camcorders and recorded a minute of programming right off the screen. Then, with the camera still running, they went into their yards and videotaped the sky just as the star Aldebaran slipped behind the moon. Finally they came back inside, taped a bit more TV and went back...
...participants in the curious exercise were neither cultists nor performance artists but astronomers--albeit amateur ones. Recruited largely via the Internet, they were helping the astronomical pros study the occultation--or eclipse--of Aldebaran, an observation that could lead to a more precise estimate of the moon's diameter. That figure in turn could serve as a cosmic yardstick by which to measure other heavenly bodies...
...last week's mass moon watch, the professionals needed the dilettantes badly. When Aldebaran slipped behind the moon, it never slipped completely. Rather, it just arced around a bit of horizon, seeming to flicker as it passed behind mountains and peeked over valleys. The pattern of flashes allows astronomers to trace the lunar profile, refining surveys taken by past space probes. Since observers on different parts of the earth would see the star obscured by different parts of the moon, however, the more sightings scientists collected, the more lunar real estate they would cover...