Jupiter, Europa, Io & Ganymede

[Joe Stieber]

Hi Joe

Good detective work. Here is an earlier (cropped) shot with some details.

Cheers
Dennis

Actually, my detective work wasn't so good. The satellite+shadow alignment I found on Feb 16 was, by chance, essentially the same as your original image on Feb 10 local time (Feb 9 UT), so I was just lucky that they matched and I was able to conclude your location and Jupiter's orientation.

However, it is interesting that the alignment repeated so similarly after 7 days, 2.5 hours. When I backed up by an hour on Feb 16, to 18:45 UT, Io and Europa were in vertical alignment like your second image; however, Europa's shadow was not on Jupiter's central meridian, but to the right (east) of it and closer to Europa. I suppose the shadow's position on the 16th reflects Jupiter being nearer to opposition, when the satellite and its shadow would cross the meridian at the same time.

Anyway, the second image is also very nice -- as is the labeling!