Sunday, May 21, 2017

double shadow transit on jupiter

Lest I forget, the night of the 18th there was a double shadow transit on Jupiter.  I viewed starting ~9pm while the event was in progress.  Io had already finished its transit and it's shadow was approaching the limb.  Europa was mid-transit -- try as I might I could not see it -- but its shadow was about a quarter of the way in.  Europa's shadow was noticeably larger than Io's.  With them on opposite sides of the planet I had the strong impression that the shadows were facing outwards in different directions, confirming Jupiter is an orb.  Perhaps somehow I could detect different angles of the shadow disks.  There was a lot of detail in the bands, color changes, etc. though overall Jupiter seemed a dull color, greys, tans, and light oranges.  With the 12.5-inch, 340x

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