Jupiter and the Moon

I’m a bit slow in getting this out–life tends to get in the way of blog posting. On October 6 we had a great occultation of Jupiter and the Moon here in North America. An occultation is when the moon passes in front of a planet. This one started at about 4:22 a.m. here in Sagamore Hills, Ohio, USA, and finished about an hour later. I have to say “about” because I was too excited to look at my watch to catch the actual times. “About” is close enough. Amazing how quiet my neighborhood is at four in the morning. The only other spectators were four white-tail deer and an Eastern Screech-owl who provided the musical background. I was a bit off in my calculations of where the moon would appear in the east. However, I found it easy to scramble down the street with my gear at O-dark-30.

In this first image (all made with my Explore Scientific ED 80 scope and Nikon D850 camera, post processing in LightRoom Classic) shows Jupiter about to be overshadowed by the moon.

In this second image, Jupiter and four of its Galilean moons appear as the moon passes.

Another great night in the driveway, or, down the street in this case.