I was out tonight watching Io and its shadow transit of Jupiter. The shadow was very sharp and the moon was an indistinct blob beside it against the southern equatorial band (135x mag). With about 15% of the transit left to go, Io all of a sudden became a sharp tiny disk right beside the shadow. I followed it until Io separated from Jupiter. At the moment Jupiter is showing 3 dark brown spots on the northern eq. band. I’ve found out that they are called ‘barges’. Had a good look at the moon also, concentrating on the regions around Clavius and Copernicus. A few nights ago I was watching Jupiter and saw for the first time many more cloud bands in both of the mid-lattitudes clearly withouot filtering. I also saw Ganymede as a distinct disk for the first time. All in all, it’s been great observing Jupiter while its at conjunction. PS… While observing the transit tonight, I felt quite sure that Io was also transiting the Great no-so-red spot. A programme I use to check the grs position didn’t seem to agree, however i’ve been on cloudy nights and some one has announced that this was going to occur. So I watched a transit on top of another transit. Cool!!!