Celestial Phenomena : Quadruple Eclipse Shadow on Jupiter
Posted: 24.01.2003, 16:49
by Calculus
One says this is impossible because of the accurate relation of the 3 first galilean moons revolution rates (only 2 of them can simultaneously cast a shadow on Jupiter). Although this is true, I found this very special case where one can witness 4 eclipse shadows when looking at the Jupiter disk.
Check it out in my Gallery!
Posted: 24.01.2003, 17:08
by Kendrix
Ok but there are not 4 shadows on Jupiter !
Juste a little question : Do you use my eclipse finder ? (If yes I'm happy to have implemented it...
)
By the way I have modified it to show the number of simultaneous eclipses...
Usefull to find that kind of things...
Posted: 24.01.2003, 17:45
by Calculus
Kendrix you are right, but when you look at Jupiter you actually see 4 shadows. And to be exact, there are only 3 shadows but one of them is casted on 2 different locations.
Yes, I use your eclipse finder. Not in this case but to find the 3 eclipses on Uranus for example. And I have some suggestions to enhance it:
- the number of eclipses is a good addition. You could add the magnitude of the eclipses too.
- it would be great to be able to select any celestial body casting a shadow on any other celestial body. Example : I am looking for the eclipse's shadows of Ganymede or Europa casted on Europa or Io. That way it could predict all mutual events of Jupiter satellites.
- another option could be to find transits/occultations. Example1: Venus transit on Sun as seen from Earth. Example2: Mars occultation by Moon as seen from Venus! It is the same as finding an eclipse, only you use another celestial body instead of the sun and you don't care of the size of the umbra/penumbra cone. It is "only" an alignment of 3 bodies.
- at last, it would be great if we could copy and paste the result list into another soft (excel) to review it.
The possibilites are endless: occultation of stars by major or minor planets, or even spacecrafts it your eclipse finder use the xyz files.
I bet it is not that difficult to change the calculation methods, but as far as I know, the User Interface has to be changed in order to multi-select the bodies. I hope you can do it for V1.2.6 (or someone else)
Posted: 24.01.2003, 18:05
by Calculus
Kendrix,
I forgot to mention one enhancement but this one seems more tricky:
- eclipses on rings or rings eclipsing a moon or even its planet!
I think now you have some work to do
