Oh, Jovian Moons - Where Art Thou?

Tonight, Jupiter's main four moons move either directly behind or directly in front of Jupiter from our perspective, leaving the visual image of the gas giant unusually alone. Ganymede and Europa move in front of the planet, whereas Io and Callisto will move behind it, all at around the same time. It's rather rare for such an event to occur, about 12 or so times per century!

Anyway, I used my Orion 6" Dob to check it out, starting at about 10PM or so tonight. No real photos, but I can show you how it appeared through my scope using captured real-time apparent views from Calsky. Seeing conditions were actually pretty good, about 4/5.

10:25PM US CST (03:25 UTC)









Ganymede - Europa - Jupiter - Io

11:05PM US CST (04:05 UTC)









Ganymede - Jupiter

11:38 US CST (04:38 UTC)









Ganymede - Jupiter

(Bye Ganymede!!!!)

00:07 US CST (05:07 UTC)









Just Jupiter!

This was quite a neat sight, albeit rather odd. To see Jupiter alone with a dark, lonely background and no moons surrounding it took some getting used to! I studied it for about 35 minutes, watching Europa's and Ganymede's shadows slowly make their way across the gas giant's disc. I fancied that I could still see the scar left behind by the comet/asteroid when impacting it several weeks ago. Not 100% sure about that, though.

Anyway, a great event to observe and I am glad I stayed up for it. Luckily I have no meetings at work tomorrow so can get away with some head-down time ;-)