Celestia Forums

Since last october 28th a season of reciprocal eclipses and occultations of the Jupite's moon has began. I tried to see these phenomena with Celestia, but I can not replicate any of the coming eclipses.
E.g. try January 27th 2003, 19:50UT, Europa should cause an anular solar eclipse on Ganymede, but staying on the SUn you can see only a close (frew seconds) conjunction of the two moons, with no eclipse.
What's the problem?
Precision in computations? precision in orbital parameters?
Or Celestia does not simulate the shadow of a moon over another?

flym wrote:Since last october 28th a season of reciprocal eclipses and occultations of the Jupite's moon has began. I tried to see these phenomena with Celestia, but I can not replicate any of the coming eclipses.
E.g. try January 27th 2003, 19:50UT, Europa should cause an anular solar eclipse on Ganymede, but staying on the SUn you can see only a close (frew seconds) conjunction of the two moons, with no eclipse.
What's the problem?
Precision in computations? precision in orbital parameters?
Or Celestia does not simulate the shadow of a moon over another?

Celestia does simulate the shadows cast from one moon onto another. Do you have eclipses turned on (Ctrl+E)? If so, it's probably an issue with the accuracy of Celestia's orbital calculations. I know Jupiter's position is accurate, but I think that Jupiter's equatorial plane (to which the positions of the satellites are referred) is off slightly. I'll be investigating further post-1.2.5. I want insane accuracy!

--Chris

I've checked the mutual events of jupiter's moons and I can't see them with celestia 1.2.5pre7. The moons are very close but don't occult each other. (same with eclipses).
Not even speaking of the light time delay, there might be a glitch in the moons orbit computation.