Occultation of Jupiter

by Matt Tarlach


Just got in from viewing the daytime occultation of Jupiter by the Moon.

My wife and I observed the occultation from our backyard near Sacramento, where we took a break from painting the house. Conditions were really excellent: I don't recall being able to see so easily a crescent Moon so close to the midday sun, even without my polarized sunglasses. Seeing was also much better than average for midday from my backyard. I was able to see several small but interesting sunspot groups at 90x with my Baader filter, and a number of craters on the Moon. Even Jupiter's two main belts were visible at steady intervals.

I used my 80mm Short Tube at 20x (20mm erfle) and 90x (12.5mm ortho + barlow). Setting up the scope in the shade of our patio umbrella helped reduce stray light and improve contrast. Not having a polarizer, I tried red and orange filters to dim the sky background, and they were helpful, but suppressed Jupiter's belts so I stuck with the lower contrast unfiltered view. We picked up the event about 15 minutes from first contact, and took turns watching as the Moon approached Jupiter. There was plenty of time between first and second contact for both of us to get good views.