Ganymede Occulting Io - Animation

[Mike Salway]

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.

Ganymede Occulting Io Animation (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/18) (250k gif)

For more info about my capture and processing settings for this event, and why it’s even so special at all:
Ganymede Occulting Io - My First Galilean Moon Occultation (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/2009/05/26/ganymede-occulting-io-my-first-galilean-moon-occultation)

Thanks for looking.

http://www.mikesalway.com.au/wp-content/uploads//2009/05/ganymede-occult-io4.jpg (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/18)

[Catanonia]

Awesome stuff there. I hate to thing how much the setup cost.

Create work and your site is nice too.

[MidnightSun]

Fantastic....:cool: With details too......:D Nice shoooting....

[Bernoulli]

Mike, that is just excellent! I've watched these through the eyepiece a few times and I can sort of get the impression of overlapping disks at very high powers.

I hope you try this again w/o the cloud bands and show us some more.

[Mike Salway]

Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback.
Catatonia, my setup costs less than you think. Less than most high-level photography setups!

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

Great work mike. Stunning actually. I know how small these are and hard to get with the wrong seeing.

Great work.

Baz.

[Mike Salway]

Thanks Baz.

Here's a colour image of the pair about 20 minutes before.

[siejones]

Woooooow....wow....wow! All I can say really.

[Sorarse]

I can only dream of ever capturing anything even half as good as that. Very, very impressive.