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                        PLANET ANOMALY UPDATE
                              2005 #0-3
                      (issued 21-May, 13:45 UT)
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                 Cusp passage duration about 1.8 days ?



Dear Colleagues,

recent PLANET data collected with the Canopus 1.0m near Hobart between
HJD=2453512.016 (21-May, 12:23 UT) and HJD=2453512.023 (21-May, 12:33 UT)
suggest that the caustic passage in OGLE 2005-BLG-018, which was first
publicly announced to be in progress by the OGLE collaboration, has reached
its magnification maximum now, indicated by a flattening in the light curve
as compared to the rise seen in earlier data taken by PLANET with the
Danish 1.54m at ESO LaSilla and by OGLE. The OGLE data were particularly
useful for properly aligning the PLANET data from the Danish 1.54m in
magnitude.

If our interpretation of the data is correct, the cusp passage is expected to
last until about HJD=2453513.95 (23-May, 11:00 UT), corresponding to a
duration of ~ 1.8 days.

Event:            OGLE 2005-BLG-018
RA (J2000):       17:51:23.53
Dec (J2000):      -29:39:27.8

The baseline I magnitude reported by the OGLE team is 15.532.

For further information:
PLANET:   http://planet.iap.fr
OGLE:     http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~ftp/ogle/

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On behalf of the PLANET collaboration

Martin Dominik

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