The main excitement of the evening was centred on the rare and elusive transit of Saturn across the face of Jupiter, the pair having been in conjunction in Taurus for some months.
Right on schedule at 21:02 AEST, the leading edge of Saturn’s A ring touched the edge of Jupiter’s disc, and by 21:20 it had reached as far as the Great Red Spot, which, shortly after, could be seen dimly through the rings.
The Great Red Spot brightened up at 21:35 as it entered Cassini’s Division and then Encke’s Division and was hardly dimmed at all by the Crepe Ring.
Of most interest to observers was the long awaited eclipse of Ganymede by Titan, the first on record since 2002 BC when a similar occurrence was hinted at in the Pyramid Texts recently deciphered by Archaeologists digging at Giza, near Cairo.
This caused great debate among scholars as the ancient Egyptians were not believed to have invented the telescope. However, fragments of literature dating from the Ptolemaic period concerning the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria mention that the fire at its summit lit to guide shipping was reflected by a mirror "...which made distant ships seem closer..." and this suggests that Newton may have been anticipated by several millennia in the invention of the reflector.
In any event, the Ganymede eclipse went off on schedule, with the gradual dimming of Titan over several minutes being consistent with the latter having an extensive atmosphere.
The club’s Deep Sky Observers (DSO’s) were also busy, with several members working their way through the Greater Catalogue of Lesser Murrell Objects. Col McMickle claimed a possible sighting of Murrell 69, a faint 19th magnitude extended object in Virgo.
Planetary Observer Greg Burnt believed he had made several sightings of Pluto’s moon, Charon, aided by the new enhanced coating on his 6 inch Comet Seeker Telescope.
Several members made observations of Comet Hale Bopp, which has brightened up by 9 magnitudes over recent weeks since encountering the shock wave from Supernova 1987AA. However, there were no reports of sighting the Heaven’s Gate contingent, who had planned to be nearby, so there is speculation that the shock wave may have destroyed their craft.
Joe Grouchy’s flash photo of the event was only partially successful because of the time differential between the two objects, resulting in Saturn being fully illuminated but Jupiter showing a shadowed limb. However it clearly showed Jupiter shining through Saturn’s rings, and photographically showed more detail than was visually observed even in Greg Burnt’s enhanced 6 inch Comet Seeker Telescope.
This being close to summer, and with a shorter period of darkness to work with, Joe sensibly did not try to photograph objects further away than the LMC, but even with maximum aperture and flash, his photo of Hale Bopp confirmed the visual observations, with no sign of the Heaven’s Gate shuttle bus.
The club radio hamateurs made a serious effort to target Eros with our antique Wiruna Radio Telescope, following on the exciting news of NASA’s photograph of living beings on the Asteroid, but nothing that could be seriously regarded as a message was heard, though what sounded like Balalaika music could be picked up from time to time from the general direction of the Mir Space Station.
Daytime activities included collecting firewood for the Star Party, and building an eat in kitchen for the Arachnis Pittoilettis now that the group has been taught barbecue skills by Mr Scott Muesli. A number of the arachnids have taken up residence in his remarkable edifice in order to perfect their cooking skills.
With the end of summer, water skiing activities in the Wiruna Dam are tapering off, and after April, it will be no longer used for sporting activities until June when the ice skating gets into it’s stride, after the crocodiles hibernate.
Road base for the club’s expressway network has been laid, but the extra three lanes and the overpass between Buckley’s Ballroom, (the Meeting Hall) and the eat in kitchen will not be finished until after the 2001 South Pacific Star Party.