Mutual phenomena of Jupiter's Galilean satellites 1973–74

Two series of predictions have been published for the 1973–1974 mutual phenomena of Jupiter's satellites, one (June–October, 1973) by Milbourn and Carey, and the other (February 1973–May 1974) by Brinkmann and Millis. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate some significant discrepancies between these two sets of predictions. New predictions are calculated for the period June 1973–May 1974. They agree very nearly with the predictions by Milbourn and Carey, but frequently differ by several minutes (up to 30 min when Jupiter III and IV are involved) from those by Brinkmann and Millis. Unlike the previous predictions, the new ones also give the estimated light decreases during the phenomena. The method of prediction is documented for future applications to Jupiter's and Saturn's satellites. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the problems involved in extracting information about the positions, radii, and albedos of the satellites from observed light curves.