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View Full Version : The Dance of the Galilean Satellites, 2004/2/23 UT

Dave Mitsky
25-February-2004, 09:20 AM
On Sunday night I witnessed an interesting tango of three Galilean satellites from the ASH Naylor Obervatory (see http://www.astrohbg.org ). When I first turned the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain towards Jupiter just before 4:30 UT (2004/2/23) Io, Europa, and Callisto (at progressively increasing distances from the planet) formed an acute triangle. In an hour and a half's time they had moved to create a straight line. At 9:10 UT the three moons were positioned in the guise of an isosceles triangle with Europa being nearest to Jupiter and Io being the farthest from the planet.

Dave Mitsky
devilmech
25-February-2004, 09:42 AM
Is there anything of value that can be inferred from this?
damienpaul
25-February-2004, 09:53 AM
Do you have any pics of this Dave, by any chance?

I noticed ofn the website that you have Dr. John Wood as a guest speaker...is that the same Dr. Wood as Tinaa's contact, if so, get an autograph for me!:D
devilmech
25-February-2004, 10:59 AM
Dr. Wood is my hero :)
Dave Mitsky
10-March-2004, 02:41 PM
Originally posted by damienpaul@Feb 25 2004, 09:53 AM
Do you have any pics of this Dave, by any chance?

I noticed ofn the website that you have Dr. John Wood as a guest speaker...is that the same Dr. Wood as Tinaa's contact, if so, get an autograph for me!:D
I'm afraid not.

Regarding Dr. Wood I don't know for a fact if that's the case. Dr. Wood has given talks to ASH in the past and is an honorary member of the club. Monday night's presentation was quite good. He talked about observing Mars at an amateur level and also presented numerous orbiter images that were simply incredible. Seeing them made the case for running water on Mars in the past very credible.

Dave Mitsky