I couldn't fall asleep so I set up at the Flatin Farm at 1 a.m. The clouds were breaking up and things were looking real good. I did the usual routine, polar alignment, checked out Gamma Leonis which split easily, looked at Sirius and thought I could see hints of Sirius B, observed the Moon and saw that the terminator was right on the Aristarchus Plateau and was going to journal when I looked up and thought, "I better look at Jupiter."
I'm glad I did. 3 moons off the east side and one on the west, VERY close in. I kept looking at it to see if it was going to move toward or away from the planet. Something else happened. At 2:30 a.m. it started to dim! It took 11 minutes to disappear completely. Steve showed up about 15 minutes later and I used his Sky&Telescope chart to find out that I had seen Ganymede eclipsed by Jupiter's shadow. YES!! I kept on monitoring Jupiter, but Ganymede was behind the planet and did not reappear by the time we packed up at 6 a.m.
Steve got M44 (The Beehive), M3 (Globular in Canes Venatici) and M94 in Canes for his Messier List. I also had him check out Cor Caroli (Alpha Canes Venaticorum) which is a beautiful double star.
We finished by observing the close approach of Venus to Saturn. Conjunction is the next two mornings. They were about a half a binocular FOV from 5 a.m. on. AGNFA!