AUGUST 12TH TO 13TH - IO AND SHADOW TRANSIT, GRS.

[paulastro]

Out from 00.45 to 2.00am using theTecnosky 102ED F7, binoviewer, Baader neodymium filter, 24 and 16mm Orthos with x2 barlow. Surprisingly good seeing until around 1.30 when it started to deteriorate.

The NE was a very rusty/orange colour,  whilst the GRS was very insipid looking to me, and showed little colour, certainly not red.  Combined with its shrinking size over the years since I first observed it in the early 70's, it has become a shadow of what it was.  

Lovely to see Io's shadow and the beautifully formed sphere of the satellite itself as they slowly encroached onto Jupiter.  Io itself a bright white small disk, as usual becoming harder to see as it transited Jupiter.

I've attached three screen shots from SkySafari to show how it looked at 1.02, 1.10 and 1.4l - orientation reversed W-E. In 'real life' the SEB was far paler than the NEB as was the GRS.