This morning I was able to capture my first Galilean Moon occultation, when Ganymede passed in front of Io, covering about 40% of the volanic moon.
The seeing was reasonably stable, maybe 6.5/10 and the morning started off beautiful and clear. Some cloud bands came through right at the wrong time, ruining some of the sequences right in the middle of the occultation. Of course it cleared completely after the event was all over.
Despite the annoying clouds almost ruining my chances of capturing anything of the occultation, I was able to image enough of the event to put together this 32-frame animation, covering 33 minutes of elapsed time. Detail and albedo features can be seen on both moons.
That's great. I'd have liked to have a go at it but the new cam hasn't turned up yet .
There's another Titan transit this Sunday. Should be able to catch the last half of it just after full dark. Might be the last opportunity for a long time.
Stunning work – it is quite astonishing to be able to witness events like this, courtesy of the dedicated and talented solar system imagers on Ice In Space who continue to push the envelope.
This morning I was able to capture my first Galilean Moon occultation, when Ganymede passed in front of Io, covering about 40% of the volanic moon.
That's a fantastic effort Mike! These mutual events are wonderful oportunities to make animations that show the astronomical clockwork of the solar system.
Wonderful capture Mike. That must take dedication, some very good optics and good seeing. I have a hard enough time just getting their Jovian parent in focus.
Here's a colour image of Io and Ganymede from about 20 minutes before the occultation.
Very nice RGB Mike.
Some very nice detail on Ganymede, seems more than just changes in albedo actually looks like large scale surface detail.
The surface of Ganymede has major bright and dark regions, the dark regions are thought to contain a greater amount of rocky material while the brighter regions are thought to be dominated more by ice.
"The New Solar System" by Beatty, Petersen & Chalkin, a University text of mine, provides considerably analysis and info on this subject and a comparison with the images in it and yours is most interesting.
Very nice RGB Mike.
Some very nice detail on Ganymede, seems more than just changes in albedo actually looks like large scale surface detail.
The surface of Ganymede has major bright and dark regions, the dark regions are thought to contain a greater amount of rocky material while the brighter regions are thought to be dominated more by ice.
"The New Solar System" by Beatty, Petersen & Chalkin, a University text of mine, provides considerably analysis and info on this subject and a comparison with the images in it and yours is most interesting.
Very well done
Cheers
Trevor
Thanks Trevor.
Giovanni Adamoli, from the WinJupos team often comments on my images and he often says about my Ganymede images:
Quote:
Ganymede, nearing transit, is showing its hemisphere with the very dark and large Galileo Region; its brighter Southern area should be the Osiris ray-crater system. You’ve already acquired these features many times in the past.
I've no doubt the features are real and often compare quite accurately with planetarium views in Starry Night Pro or the JPL Solar System simulator.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hachi
Nice work! It's kind of insane when you think about it... Imagine how much force would be required to get these huge objects moving!
This forum is great I just learned what "Occultation" means (Kind of).
iceman, you mentioned you captured this observation in the morning... Around what time in the morning was it?
Cheers, Richard
Thanks Richard.
This was captured around 4:40-5:10am.
Ganymede Occulting Io - Animation
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