Double transit and GRS on jupiter

On 3/21-22 Jupiter put on a juggling display

Io, Europa and their shadows crossed Jupiter's face along with the great red spot over the course of a few hours

unfortunately, the seeing was mediocre causing distortions
mid shadow transit, only the double shadows are evident:

ironically, the transiting moons are obscured by the bright surface of Jupiter while their shadows are obvious.


as the moons rotate off to the right edge of the planet,
they become evident casting shadows just before their transits end:

here's the animation of the second half of the show, over ~1.5 hours:

PS i've got confirmation from the amateur community that the GRS has been getting a bit more red since 2012. it's also slowly shrinking according to NASA.



celestron nexstar 8 GPS (8" SCT on a wedge)
ZWO ASI120MC
27x 3 minute captures with firecapture @ 200 fps (exposure limited at 45% histogram with gain 64)
stacked in autostakkert, Drizzle 3x, then reduced to 1.5x
sharpened in registax 6
Southern California
3/21/16
mediocre seeing
Mid(UT): 3/22/16
055902.027

jupiter's redder red spot, detail on ganymede

jupiter's up and in prime form right now
here's my first of the season:

might be my imagination, 

but the red spot (which had been fading to tan) 

looks more red to me this year

here's an interesting one i think i neglected to post from 2 years ago look closely at Ganymede transiting the face of Jupiter:

The black dot lower left is the shadow of Io which is further left and below Jupiter.
Just below the shadow, Ganymede is crossing the face of Jupiter.  A close look at Ganymede shows the bottom is white while the top is slightly brown, demonstrating detail on one of Jupiter's moons.  Although not much, I never thought i'd get that from a backyard telescope.

More to come, including an animation of last night's double transit.

details:
nexstar 8 GPS (8" SCT on a wedge)
ZWO ASI120MC
3 minute capture with firecapture @ 50 fps (exposure limited at 95% histogram with gain 64)
stacked in autostakkert, Drizzle 3x, then reduced to 1.5x
sharpened in registax 6
Southern California
3/17/16 fair seeing
Mid(UT)=065303.255

Ganymede transit image from 3/30/2014