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I too, had a nervous wait with patches of high cloud lurking around all day. Luckily most had dissipated by early evening and the sky around Jupiter remained clear.
I managed to see all of the events despite a bit of misadventure. I am camping near Cobram in country Victoria and I set up my scope thinking that Jupiter would be clear of nearby trees around 10pm. Wrong. At 9.35 it was clear that I needed to move. I quickly moved everything about twenty feet and all was good for the main event.
I could not pick up the Europa shadow ingress, but several minutes later the sky was dark enough for me to watch Europa form a tiny bulge on Jupiter’s limb at egress.
The Io ingress was nice and clear and I could follow it’s transit for about 10 minutes before it was lost in the surrounding glare of Jupiter’s disc. Europa’s shadow was like a sharp pin point by this time, well past the meridian. I followed Europa’s shadow as it progressed across Jupiter. However it became increasingly difficult to see as it approached Jupiter’s limb.
I then concentrated on the approaching Io shadow. I was able to see it form a notch on Jupiter’s limb. The notch slowly increased and eventually the round shadow was fully within Jupiter’s disc.
Both shadows were now on Jupiter, but I could not see them simultaneously. Io’s shadow was large and an easy target to see. But, Europa’s shadow near Jupiter’s limb was very, very difficult to see. I could just pick it up in moments of better seeing. Io was near mid transit at this point but not visible.
A very pleasing observation.
Vixen NA140SS with LVW5 giving 150x.
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