International Occultation Timing Association

European Section 

History of Jovian Occultations

In the last 15 years, 3 bright occultations took place:

1996, 6th of March

This spectacular event, an occultation  of nu2 SGR has been recorded with an IOTA Occultation Camera from the Observatory of the Orange County Astronomers using the 50cm Kuhn telescope. The site is only a few miles from Mt Palomar! A methane band filter around 890nm with a bandwidth of 20nm and a maximum transmittance of 85% has been used to observe in the methane absorption band to enhance the contrast between nu2 and the Jupiter bright disk. The movie of the event has been taken by W. Beisker (IOTA-ES), E. Hummel (VSTW Munich) and J. Sanford from the Orange County Astronomers. Clearly the twinkling of the star due to the jovian atmosphere can be seen.

The movie shows a loop of the event, which about  1 minute  in the original recording.

1999, 10th of October

Star: HIP 9369, K-magnitude 6.5

2008, 13th of February

visible from large parts of eastern Asia. IOTA-ES maintained an own website, to give predictions and graphics for this event. Read more...

A table of historic occultations by Jupiter including main publications about the event has been compiled by Apostolos Christou, Armagh Observatory:

Star 

V-mag

Epoch 

Jovian. Lat

References

HIP 9369 

7.6

10/10/99

55-73 N

Raynaud et al, 2003, Icarus, 162, 344

nu2-Sgr

5

06/03/96

42-45 N

 Dunham et al, 1996, BAAS, 28, 1144

SAO 78505

8.7

13/12/1989

 8 N 

Hubbard et al, 1995, Icarus, 113, 103

β Sco 

2.6, 4.9, 10

13/5/1971

10, 45-50, 60 S

Veverka et al, 1974, AJ, 79, 73;
Vapillon et al 1973, A&A, 29, 135;
and many others....

σ Ari

5.5

20/11/1952

~50 S

Baum & Code, 1953, AJ, 58, 108

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