For the first time, I'm really glad that I rented a bad movie! About halfway through the movie I'd had enough so I stopped the movie and went outside. I wanted to see Venus in the western sky. After enjoying Venus I had no desire to return to the bad movie so I decided to get out my telescope. I rarely get out my scope when the moon is so bright, but I made an exception tonight. I'm very glad I did!

I started observing Jupiter about 9:30 or so. I thought that it was very unusual that I could only see one moon. But the viewing conditions of the planet itself were excellent. The dark cloud bands were clearly visible. The I noticed a small black dot, which at first I thought must be a spot on my lens or something. I soon realized that I must be seeing the shadow of a moon in transit across Jupiter. As I kept watching I soon noticed a bright spot emerging from behind the planet. It was on the wrong side of the planet to be the moon causing the shadow so I knew that it was a different moon. I was very happy to watch the slow changes made as the shadow crossed the planet and the other moon separated itself more and more from the planet. Occasionally the turbulance would settle down for a moment and I would have a brief "moment of clarity" and I soon realized that the upper cloud band had a definite round bump in it - the Great Red Spot. I have seen the GRS only once before (in someone else's scope) so at first I didn't believe my eyes, but as I continued to observe I watch it slowly move at the same pace as the shadow of the moon.

Just when I thought that things couldn't get any better, a small bright spot started to appear on the other side of the planet - a spot that lined up perfectly with the moon shadow. Seeing the moon with its shadow gave the whole view a more three dimensional effect. I kept observing until the shadow was gone, about 11:00. By then both moons were about the same viewing distance away from Jupiter, one on the left and one on the right. The GRS was harder to see because there were fewer moments of clarity.

When I came in I did some checking on the internet and the GRS was in transit during the time that I was observing. Also I found out that it was Io whose shadow I saw crossing the planet. So I am very glad that the movie that I rented was bad so that I got a chance to see all of this. Hopefully I will rent more bad movies in the future!

You know I read something on Sky and Telescope about 2 transits, a eclipse and the GRS all in the same night. I checked back like 30 minutes later to look at another day and I noticed that portion was no longer there. I noticed also they had updated their weekly event thing, so I chalked it up to being last Saturday. I watched Star Wars tonight so that would have taken up my time anyway. I can't wait for the 24th and 27th though. That sounds really awesome though!

Bob did you catch the little blurb I made in my email talking about what Roberta saw?