Re: Saturn shadow transit.
- From: brian@xxxxxxx (Brian Tung)
- Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 06:55:52 +0000 (UTC)
Uncle Bob wrote:
> Have you ever witnessed such an event on Saturn? I have never seen a
> photo of one. Are these events visible when the rings aren't edge on to
> earth? It would seem so to me.
To be visible as a dark spot from the Earth, the satellite in question
must be large enough to entirely occult (eclipse) the Sun as seen from
some point on Saturn's cloudtops. Otherwise, the shadow will be all
penumbra and be pretty difficult to make out.
The only ones that are definitely large enough are Tethys and Titan,
although there are a few near misses among the other satellites (Rhea,
Dione, Enceladus) that might show dark enough penumbras to be visible
with a large-ish telescope.
Anyone have any prior reports from the last edge-on year?
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
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.
- References:
- Saturn shadow transit.
- From: Uncle Bob
- Saturn shadow transit.
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