1 research outputs found
The photometric observation of the quasi-simultaneous mutual eclipse and occultation between Europa and Ganymede on 22 August 2021
Mutual events (MEs) are eclipses and occultations among planetary natural
satellites. Most of the time, eclipses and occultations occur separately.
However, the same satellite pair will exhibit an eclipse and an occultation
quasi-simultaneously under particular orbital configurations. This kind of rare
event is termed as a quasi-simultaneous mutual event (QSME). During the 2021
campaign of mutual events of jovian satellites, we observed a QSME between
Europa and Ganymede. The present study aims to describe and study the event in
detail. We observed the QSME with a CCD camera attached to a 300-mm telescope
at the Hong Kong Space Museum Sai Kung iObservatory. We obtained the combined
flux of Europa and Ganymede from aperture photometry. A geometric model was
developed to explain the light curve observed. Our results are compared with
theoretical predictions (O-C). We found that our simple geometric model can
explain the QSME fairly accurately, and the QSME light curve is a superposition
of the light curves of an eclipse and an occultation. Notably, the observed
flux drops are within 2.6% of the theoretical predictions. The size of the
event central time O-Cs ranges from -14.4 to 43.2 s. Both O-Cs of flux drop and
timing are comparable to other studies adopting more complicated models. Given
the event rarity, model simplicity and accuracy, we encourage more observations
and analysis on QSMEs to improve Solar System ephemerides.Comment: 23 pages, 5 appendixes, 16 figures, 7 table