Ganymede Occulting Io – My First Galilean Moon Occultation!
UPDATE: See below for a new colour image of Io and Ganymede.
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. Click the image to play the animation.
Ganymede Occulting Io - click to play
Continue reading to find about my capture and processing settings for this event, and why it’s even so special at all.
posted in Astrophotography | 6 Comments
My name is Mike Salway and I'm an amateur astronomer and photographer. I'm the co-founder of 
