Jupiter

A publication of the Jupiter Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers

Vol. 12, No. 6                                                       June 7, 2010

Apparition Dates:

Jupiter was at Solar conjunction on February 28, 2010

Jupiter reaches opposition on September 21, 2010

Jupiter returns to conjunction on April 6, 2011

It is exciting times to be a Jupiter observer! The early details of the discovery by Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go are covered in nearby locations on this site.

The most recent “surprise” is that this apparent impact event did not leave any kind of dark spot, nor any signature in the infrared. Perhaps we should not be surprised. We have precious few previous confirmed impacts to go on (2). I will not try to list the various hypotheses now. There are too many mutually exclusive ideas being floated. Until we get more observations and deeper analysis of the little bit of data in hand, there is no way to choose among them.

One point that I want to emphasize is that we would not be discussing this event very much if there had been only one observer. Both Anthony and Christopher (separated by many miles) saw the same event at the same time. That lets us quickly rule out seeing effects or telescope/ camera/ software issues. It even rules out my personal favorite hypothesis for an unexplained flash: a small head-on meteor in the Earth’s atmosphere. (Somebody always suggests it.)

The importance of simultaneous observations cannot be overemphasized.

And now for some images of Jupiter not related to the suspected impact.

Paul Maxson 2010-05-26
South is up. Preceding to the left.

Rich Jakiel 2010-05-28

South is up. Preceding to the left.

Christophe Pellier 2010-06-05

South is up. Preceding to the left.

Submission of Observations

Note to imagers: Please put your name, UT date, UT time, and CM1 and CM2 on all images.

Please submit observations as directed below:

Mail CM transit timings monthly to:
John McAnally
2124 Wooded Acres
Waco, TX 76710
E-mail: CPAJohnM@aol.com

Mail photographs and images at least monthly. We prefer e-mail attachment of JPG image. 
Richard W. Schmude
Gordon College
Division of Mathematics and Natural Science
419 College Dr
Barnesville, GA 30204
E-mail: Schmude@gdn.edu

Mail observations of the timings of eclipses of Jupiter's satellites to:
John E. Westfall
P.O. Box 16131
San Francisco, CA 94116
E-mail: johnwestfall@comcast.net

ALPO_Jupiter

Join ALPO_Jupiter, the Jupiter Section’s E-mail network. Provided for observers of Jupiter to share observations, make comments, ask questions and generally provide help to each other.
To join, send a blank e-mail to ALPO_Jupiter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Newsletter Editor: Craig MacDougal, Assistant Coordinator, ALPO Jupiter Section

Email: macdouc@verizon.net

June 3, 2010

ALERT! Suspected Impact Event on Jupiter

Suspected Jupiter impact event captured by Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go!

A video of the event by Christopher Go, Cebu City, Philippines:

This is Anthony Wesley’s video of the event (30 sec, 45m avi)

Anthony Wesley’s time and location data for this event:

2010-06-03 20:31:29UTC
CM1: 300
CM2: 33.8
CM3: 210.4

L1: 248.8
L2: 342.7
L3: 159.4

Latitude -16.1

A color version of Anthony’s image can be found at this link. Observers are encouraged to image the impact site to look for dark features caused by the event. Please visit Christopher Go’s website for his images of the event (and for comparison images when hunting for impact artifacts).

Here are some reappearance times for the impact area, thanks to Marc Delcroix and WinJUPOS:

WinJUPOS 8.3.0 (Jupiter), C.M. transit times, 2010/06/04 17:02
Object longitude: L2 = 346,8° + 1,0000°/d * (T – 2010 Jun 03,5)
Time interval: 2010 Jun 03,0 … 2010 Aug 01,0
Output format: Date UT (C.M. of System 2)
———————————————————-
2010 Jun 03 09:17 ( 346°) 19:14 ( 347°)
2010 Jun 04 05:10 ( 347°) 15:07 ( 348°)
2010 Jun 05 01:03 ( 348°) 10:59 ( 349°) 20:56 ( 349°)
2010 Jun 06 06:52 ( 349°) 16:49 ( 350°)
2010 Jun 07 02:45 ( 350°) 12:41 ( 351°) 22:38 ( 351°)
2010 Jun 08 08:34 ( 352°) 18:31 ( 352°)
2010 Jun 09 04:27 ( 352°) 14:23 ( 353°)
2010 Jun 10 00:20 ( 353°) 10:16 ( 354°) 20:13 ( 354°)
2010 Jun 11 06:09 ( 355°) 16:05 ( 355°)
2010 Jun 12 02:02 ( 356°) 11:58 ( 356°) 21:55 ( 357°)
2010 Jun 13 07:51 ( 357°) 17:47 ( 357°)
2010 Jun 14 03:44 ( 358°) 13:40 ( 358°) 23:36 ( 358°)
2010 Jun 15 09:33 ( 359°) 19:29 ( 359°)
2010 Jun 16 05:26 ( 0°) 15:22 ( 0°)

« Newer Posts