Io occulting its own shadow

[BGazing]

And now for something completely different...

Tired of ordinary transits and shadow transits. It's opposition tonight and Io's transit and shadow transit were coinciding. Io actually occulted its own shadow partially...it was very strange and very 3d. Gave a definite disk-like view in Tak at 158x, even in mediocre seeing.

Too bad nothing like that will be visible from Europe in the coming days. Those located in Asia and Oceania might have some luck on 11 May.

[MarsG76]

Nice spotting... I had the pleasure of seeing the transit of Europa last night, JUST BARELY due to seeing though... I was limited to about 160X magnification but the tiny dark shadow was definitely there.

 

[Stu]

Nice one. I’ve seen this before, but no luck last night...cloudy of course  

Glad you caught it.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Wouldn't this be considered an eclipse on Jupiter. Solar or lunar?. I'm thinking solar. Quite strange. 

[BGazing]

Shadow transits happen all the time and with regularity, you can catch one provided the weather is good, just check the ingress and egress times.

Here, however, Io occulted its own shadow for us, Earthlings. It always occults its own shadow for those who live on the Sun, it is just that we have lined up with them this time. 

[LukeSkywatcher]

Thats what i mean, this is no ordinary transit.

[niallk]

Nicd one: terrible seeing here last night, but tried anyway. Detected the GRS plus Io's shadow, but unfortunately the views were not stellar! (geddit )

Also: set up in my front garden, because the bulb was gone in the streetlamp due south just outside. I kid you not: after 4 weeks, the council turn up with the cherry picker van to fix it at 10:30pm on the bloody night I decide to set up my scope!

Sheeesh...

[BGazing]

@niallk you guys are having it even lower than we do...no wonder it's dancing around.

whatta lotta gun you have there. too bad it exacerbates the effects of iffy seeing...

[niallk]

55 minutes ago, BGazing said:

 

whatta lotta gun you have there. too bad it exacerbates the effects of iffy seeing...

Yup, but when we get half decent to good seeing, it delivers   I knew the jetstream was in our vicinity last night, so combined with the low altitude of Jupiter from here, I knew it was being hopeful.

Glad you got decent views: it was an unusual alignment - I had checked it out on Sky Safari beforehand and thought hey I gotta at least try to see that!