Edwin Goffin's original prediction indicates an event very favourably placed for eastern Australia, the shadow crossing the northern New South Wales and the Adelaide region of South Australia.

UPDATE (19 November 1998):

Jan Manek of the Stefanik Observatoy in Prague has computed an update based upon astrometry obtained by Bill Owen at Table Mountain Observatory between November 5 and 7. Manek has used the HIPPARCOS position of the star, thereby essentially reducing any error in the star position to zero.

• The path remains essentially as originally predicted, crossing northern New South Wales and the region of Adelaide;
  
• Predicted event times are substantially the same as originally predicted:
  
  • NORTHERN NSW : 10h 04.5m UT
  • ADELAIDE : 10h 06m UT

Uncertainties are currently about 1.0 path widths.

Observers in the west will have difficulty with the twilight as sunset in Adelaide occurs at 09:34 UT and the star involved is magnitude 8.9.

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Astrometric updates such as these should not be taken as definitive, but rather only as an indication of where the true track may lie relative to the original predicted track. Observers must bear in mind that later astrometry, in which the target star is measured in the same field as the asteroid, may still reveal substantial changes to the predicted track and time of the event. For this reason it is most important that observers far from the predicted track still monitor the event.

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