Jupiter: Ganymede Occulting Europa - right now !

[John]

Thanks to this "heads up" from @paulastro I've got my ED120 refractor out and I've actually managed to find a spot in the garden where Jupiter is in view having just popped out from behind a large tree:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/380848-august-1st2nd-ganymede-occults-europa/?tab=comments#comment-4119061

The seeing is a little unsteady with Jupiter low down but it's gradually improving as the planet and it's moons climb a little higher in the sky.

The partial occultation of Europa by Ganymede is in progress and at 225x the pair are showing as a nice "snowman" effect as per the 2nd image on the Astonomy Now page that Paul has kindly posted.

Nice to see this because a) I didn't think it would be clear, b) if clear, I didn't think Jupiter would have risen high enough for me to get a scope on it and c) I'm likely to make my 50,000th post on this forum shortly and this seems a nice way to mark that !!! 

Here is the Stellarium impression of this event:

I'm off out for some more now !

Edited August 1, 2021 by John

[globular]

Snowman on 2nd August… very nice 

[John]

Ganymede and Europa are just pulling away from each other now. I can split them at 250x. They look like a lovely tight binary pair in between Callisto and Jupiter.

No GRS tonight but some nice jovian belt details emerging now. Some small barge-type structures along the N edge of the NEB I think.

Good to be out just now. Saturn not too shabby either

[John]

Just packed in. Lovely session that - just concentrating on the 2 gas giants with the moon occultation being the main feature.

As Jupiter rose higher in the sky, more surface details started to resolve. As well as the delicate NEB barges already mentioned I also got some clear glimpses of the more prominent southern hemisphere white ovals as imaged by @Fedele a few nights ago. First time I've been able to see white ovals with the ED120 

 

[Stu]

Thanks @John, sounds like a lovely session. Cloudy here, and all my kit is packed up so I can’t observe at the moment.

Congratulations on the 50k posts, amazing. There is a little discussion on this elsewhere which you may see 😉

[wulfrun]

Rather annoyingly, it has been pretty much clouded out here for a while. However, last night I noticed Jupiter shining brightly through a gap in the clouds as I headed off to bed. Tantalising but not enough clear sky to warrant putting a scope out. I'm glad someone got to appreciate a view of this event.