On Saturday night 8th August, I was able to capture some images of Jupiter with Io and its shadow in transit. The seeing was just above average – good enough to capture albedo features on Io, including the dark polar regions in contrast against the cloud tops of Jupiter.

The best image from the session is below. Io and it’s shadow are seen on the left, the Wesley Impact Scar is at top left just setting, and Oval BA is on the top right just rising.

Jupiter, Io and Shadow Transit

Please continue reading to see a 6-frame animation of all of the images from the night.

The animation below consists of all 6 frames captured on the night, in seeing that started at about 4-5/10 and improved slightly to peak at 6/10 but never got any better than that. Click the image below to play the animation (1meg gif).

Jupiter, Io and Shadow Transit Animation. Click to Play.

Earlier in the night, I was at an observing night for my daughter Eliza’s girl guide group. They were having a Winter Sleepout under the stars, and I invited the 3RF boys along – who brought 2 18″ telescopes for the girls to look through.

It was an amazing night – beautifully clear, excellent seeing and we had some stunning views of Jupiter and the Moon while they were still very low. The girls (all aged 8-9) and the leaders really enjoyed looking through the telescopes. Hopefully we’ve inspired a few future amateur astronomers among their ranks!

By the time I got home and started imaging, the seeing had dropped off a bit but I’m still glad to have captured the transit.

All taken with the DMK21AU04 and 12″ Newt, for 33 seconds in each channel. 450 frames from each channel were stacked to create the images.

Thanks for looking.

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