Saturday, January 12, 2013

tried to find double shadows

Phil called. Asked when the next double shadow event was on Jupiter. Seemed he was horizontal and downstairs and didn't want to burn any calories. He refused to fetch his RASC 2013 Calendar or 2013 Observer's Handbook from upstairs and saw the phone handset was nearby. "Let's bug Bla."

My calendar happened to be on my desk. I spotted the March 9 event but then checked the location: NW of NA. Oops. And the event one week later: Alaska. It was hard scanning for events. I was concerned I'd miss something. Checked my Google calendar. Nothing. So I suggested using SkyTools.

Walked Phil through the process of using the Current Events tab. We scanned the Nightly Planner window but didn't find anything in the near future.

I suspected it is an alignment issue, like Saturn's ring crossing, where we need to be in the right place in our orbit in relation to the gas giant.

This was for his presentation tonight.

Reminded me of my recent career first, seeing a moon in front of the planet at the same time as a shadow. "Very rare," Phil said. He proposed it was another chance alignment: a bright moon back-dropped by a dark cloud band. Uh huh!

§

Finally hung up my RASC 2013 astro-calendar...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're welcome. Had Phil not called you, that wall calendar would still be sitting on your desk collecting horizontal dust.

bla said...

Like him.