I have done a similar experiment a few times. Astronomers will line-up across a geographical area and report the exact time a star is occulted by an asteroid. The precise outline of the object can be determined if you are spread-out over a large enough area and have enough observers, since each observer can only contribute up to two data points. This brings back memories.
One of the first experiments I ever did in astronomy was determining the diameter of Jupiter's satellites using only visual observation and a precise Universal Time clock. I was about 13 years old, my fellow students were college boys and our instructor was the astronomer at the planetarium. He's still alive, retired and looking at the skies from Southern Utah.