by Phil Terzian
I swung over to Jupiter, still low in the east. Blah. Too low. A few good bands, but mushy.
Mark, I too had fun observing for a brief time last night. I bagged a few more doubles off of the AL list and then headed over to Jupiter for a look. It was quite detailed compared to what you reported, but this may be because it was getting on to 9:30 and was higher in the sky than when you looked.
I noticed that only three of the large moons were visible. Sure enough, according to my observer's guide book, Europa was occulted, but was due to pop out from behind Jupiter at 10:48 PM. I waited around for that event and was not disappointed to see the little nub of a moon appear near the S. band right on schedule. Talk about 3 D, when you see celestial objects moving in such proximity, and their motion can be detected in real time with the naked eye...just a joy to watch.
Io had a shadow transit at 11:13, followed by the lo lunar transit about half an hour later, but I rolled the roof back on and went to bed before observing those events. Anyone else catch the show?
Posted on sf-bay-tac Wed Feb 11 05:51:38 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Wed Feb 11 22:58:35 2004 PT