Eclipses captured in satellite imagery
28 February 1998 13:30 UTC-15 February 2018 21:15 UTC
A collection of cases looking at how satellites capture imagery of solar eclipses, from 1998-2018
22 March 2023
07 February 2023
By Livia Briese, Gordon Bridge, Mark Higgins, Jochen Kerkmann, Milan Klinc, Sancha Lancaster, Johannes Müller, Vesa Nietosvaara, Ivan Smiljanic, Cecilie Wettre
Table of contents
2018
Antarctica & S America
15 Feb, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay
By Milan Klinc
On 15 February 2018 a partial solar eclipse was visible from Antarctica, plus many locations within southern South America including Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Meteosat-8 satellite was at the right place and at the right time to observe the spectacle from space and provide some very interesting and rare image data.
The main imaging instrument SEVIRI, finished a 15-minute scan at 21:15 UTC, managing to capture a view of the Sun partially eclipsed by the Moon, just a few minutes before Meteosat-8 entered the shadow of the Earth.
The image (Figure 1) displays what Meteosat-8 transmitted via the IR8.7 channel, just moments before the Sun, the Moon and the Earth were all in alignment with the satellite.
Watch this interesting video that illustrates exactly what happened during the image scan, to give a better understanding of just how fortunate the timing of the scan was.
2016
Africa
1 Sep, central & southern Africa
By Vesa Nietosvaara and Mark Higgins
On 1 September a rare 'ring-of-fire' double eclipse occurred over Africa. Meteosat-10 captured the shadow as the satellite passed over the continent.
On the Natural Colour RGB animated gif (Figure 3) the shadow caused as the Moon blocked the Sun, can be seen appearing over central parts of Africa.
On the RGB image from 08:30 UTC the red arrow indicates where the shadow occurred (Figure 2).
The geostationary location of Meteosat is ideal for following solar eclipses affecting its footprint. Especially those lasting for a few hours, while the shade of the Moon moves across the Earth.
The double solar eclipse, sometimes known as the 'ring of fire' or annular eclipse, was similar to a complete solar eclipse. But, the ring of fire eclipse occurs when the Moon is at a point in its orbit which is further away from the Earth than usual.
The name of the eclipse comes from the overall appearance of the Sun during the phenomenon. The additional distance from the Earth causes the Moon's apparent size to be reduced, which results in the Sun not being entirely blocked. As a result the partial eclipse leaves a bright, narrow ring of the surface of the Sun visible, which looks like a ring of fire.
The eclipse was also seen from the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) on Sentinel-3 (Figure 4).
The image shows 24 hours of daytime passes. The eclipse can be seen as the dark patch over central and southern Africa, on the left-hand side of the image.
The right-hand side shows the passes over Africa from 31 August, where the usual land colours can be seen.
Media report
Eclipse in Africa: 'Ring of Fire' eclipse wows stargazers (BBC News)
Pacific Ocean & Indonesia
9 Mar, western Indonesia, southern Marshall Islands, Hawaiian islands
By Jochen Kerkmann
The shadow caused by a total solar eclipse on 9 March was seen by the Himawari-8 satellite.
Millions saw the total solar eclipse over the Pacific and Indonesia. The eclipse began at 23:19 UTC (06:19 local time) on Tuesday 9 March, as the Moon started to pass directly in front of the Sun.
Totality began at 00:15 UTC, with the moment of maximum totality at 01:59 UTC. The eclipse ended north of Hawaii at 04:34 UTC. Graphic of totality (Credit: NASA)
Figure 5 is the Himwari-8 imagery of the shadow as it was over Indonesia at 01:00 UTC. Interestingly, the shadow of the Moon is much better seen in band 1 (VIS0.4) than in band 4 (VIS0.8). There are not many land surfaces on which to see the shadow, so a band that is sensitive to aerosols and haze is more appropriate for detecting the shadow on this occasion.
Image comparison
Figure 5: Comparison of Himawari-8, where the solar eclipse shadow shows better on the VIS0.4 image.
In the animation of the VIS0.4 imagery, from 9 March 00:00–03:00 UTC (Figure 6) the shadow moves from western Indonesia, across the southern Marshall Islands towards the Hawaiian Islands.
It is interesting to see how the shadow of the Moon and the sunglint area move in almost opposite directions.
Other image sources
Solar eclipse shadow as seen from geostationary satellites (CIMSS Blog)
Solar Eclipse Over the South Pacific Ocean (NASA)
Solar eclipse (Met Office Vine)
2015
Europe
20 March, Norway, Germany
By Jochen Kerkmann, Sancha Lancaster, Johannes Müller and Ivan Smiljanic
On 20 March, the shadow of the Moon crossed the Earth causing a solar eclipse.
Parts of Norway, including the Metop Ground Station in Svalbard, saw a total solar eclipse, while other parts of Europe only had a partial eclipse.
The eclipse could be seen on satellite imagery as a large shadow passing over the Northern Hemisphere.
The geostationary location of Meteosat is ideal for following solar eclipses affecting its footprint, and lasting for a few hours, while the shadow of the Moon moves across in an eastward direction (Figure 8).
The solar channels are the most descriptive and dramatic around the umbra darkness. The areas of umbra and penumbra vary with the relative distances Sun-Moon-Earth.
The animated gif (Figure 9) shows the start of the eclipse over Europe seen by Meteosat-10 Natural RGB, 20 March 08:00 to 09:45 UTC.
Watch the animation on YouTube
The eclipse was also be observed by the Hungarian Met Service, using Meteosat-10. This image shows a comparison between AVHRR from 10.25 UTC on 19 March and at 10:04 UTC on 20 March. The shade caused by the eclipse can be clearly seen on the right-hand image.
The shadow can also be clearly seen over Svalbard on the Meteosat-9 Visible 0.6µm Rapid Scan imagery (Figure 10).
The infrared channels of Meteosat can follow the cooling of a few degrees, due to the total and partial removal of solar illumination for a fraction of an hour in low-latitude eclipses.
The Meteosat-10 infrared animation, 20 March 07:00–10:30 UTC, clearly shows the cooling of the ground during the eclipse (the coldest areas are blue). In many clear-sky areas temperature dropped by as much as 5°C.
Usually from the early morning the Earth's surface gets warmer and warmer until it reaches maximum temperature around the time Sun reaches its highest position. From the infrared imagery (Figure 11) it is obvious that this heating process was stopped, or even reversed, during the eclipse.
The graphs in figures 12a and 12b clearly show the surface temperature drop during the eclipse. Figure 12a shows the drop over time at one particular pixel in southern Germany. Figure 12b shows the meteogram from the Darmstadt area in Germany. The thermogram data shows that the temperature stayed more or less constant for about an hour, during a morning period when the temperature had been rising fast.
Download the graph
Download the full resolution meteograms, showing the whole week.
Importance of satellite imagery
EUMETSAT imagery also proved to be very useful prior to the eclipse, to assess the possible impact of the solar eclipse on the stability of the German electrical power networks.
A solar eclipse (even when only partial) can cause instability in the networks because of the sudden reduction (at the beginning of the eclipse) and later increase (at the end) of electric power from photovaltaik (PV) installations. Weather, in particular cloudiness, plays a crucial role in this.
To mitigate Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) developed different scenarios, depending on the predicted cloud cover situation, to help the network companies guarantee stability in this difficult situation. In the two days running up to the eclipse, the forecast models predicted a mixed situation in Germany, with north-west Germany cloudy and central and southern Germany cloud free. The actual situation, shown in the HRV image (Figure 13) shows that the exact border ran along the Taunus mountains, with Frankfurt and Darmstadt cloud free and Cologne and Koblenz cloudy.
Images from the ground
Staff at EUMETSAT, like many offices around Europe, gathered to watch the eclipse, using telescopes, specially adapted cameras and even homemade pinhole cameras (Figure 14).
In the gallery below you can also see images of the eclipse taken by colleagues in the UK and at Svalbard.
The photos in the animation were taken by the equipment shown in the attached photo. The movie consists of 1541 single frames taken at five second intervals. The wobbling is due to manually aligning and cropping the original images, which was needed because of the non correct position of the telescope. Download animation.
Other image source
YouTube animation of eclipse imagery (Michael Sachweh)
2013
Africa
3 Nov, US, Atlantic Ocean, Africa
By Knut Dammann
Meteosat-10 captures images at 15-minute intervals of the solar eclipse over Africa. This rare solar eclipse switched between an annular and a total eclipse. A total eclipse occurs when the Moon completely covers the Sun. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is at it's furthest distance from the Earth and in this case the Moon doesn't completely cover the Sun. In this case the start of the eclipse in the far west was an annular eclipse. The eclipse was first visible in the southern United States, before moving east across the Atlantic and then across Africa as we see in the animation.
Other image source
Animated GIF (created by Dr Maximilian Reuter)
Media reports
Rare solar eclipse in America, Europe and Africa (BBC News)
Sunday Solar Eclipse: Skywatchers to Chase Moon's Shadow by Land, Sea & Air (Space.com)
2011
Europe
4 Jan, Europe
By MeteoSwiss
Meteosat-8 rapid scan service captures images at 5-minute intervals of the partial solar eclipse over Europe in 2011 (source: MeteoSwiss).
2006
Europe & Africa
29 March, northern Europe, Turkey, north Africa
By Cecilie Wettre
On 29 March, the shadow of the Moon crossed the Earth, resulting in a partial eclipse for most parts of northern Europe, and a total eclipse over Turkey and parts of north Africa (see images below).
A total solar eclipse occurs only at new Moon, when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth. The Moon's complete shadow (the umbra) sweeps across the Earth in a narrow path called the path of totality. To see a total solar eclipse, you have to be in the path of totality. Outside the path of totality, in the Moon's partial shadow (the penumbra), some portion of the Sun's bright disc remains visible.
Below are animations showing the shadow of the Moon moving across the Earth disc as seen by Meteosat-8. We see how the shadow of the Moon sweeps over the Atlantic Ocean, crosses the Sahara and passes over Turkey.
A total solar eclipse is a quite rare event. Since the orbit of the Moon is tilted by about five degrees with respect to the Earth's orbit, the Moon usually passes slightly above or below the line between the Sun and the Earth. Only about every six months, during an eclipse season, are the conditions right for a lunar or solar eclipse.
In the pictures below from the Turkish State Meteorological Service, we see some interesting phenomena. When the Moon occludes the Sun almost completely, and the narrow crescent of the Sun begins to disappear, tiny specks of light remain visible for a few seconds more. These points of light are spaced irregularly around the disappearing edge of the Sun, forming the appearance of a string of beads around the dark disc of the Moon.
These lights are known as Baily's beads, named after Francis Baily, the British astronomer who was the first to draw attention to them. The beads are actually the last few rays of sunlight shining through valleys on the edge of the Moon. Baily's beads make their brief appearance up to 15 seconds before totality. When a single point of sunlight remains, a 'diamond ring' effect is created against the outline of the Moon.
In the brief period of a total eclipse one sees the corona of the Sun. A million times fainter than the Sun itself, the corona is visible only during a total solar eclipse. Wispy plumes and streamers of coronal light reach out with distances of up to several diameters of the Sun. Against the backdrop of the white corona and the black disc of the Moon, it is possible to see the light from the Sun's lower atmosphere, the chromosphere. For a few seconds both after the beginning and before the end of totality, this pink glow appears at the edge of the Moon.
On the Earth, the darkness of totality resembles nighttime, and plants and animals react accordingly. Birds stop singing and may go to roost, bees become disoriented and stop flying, and daytime flower blossoms begin to close as if for the night. The temperature drops in the coolness of the Moon's shadow, as is shown in the graph of the temperature measured in Manavgat, Turkey. Also, of interest is the photograph of the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at the Turkish State Meteorological Service, where sunlight is focused through a water-filled glass sphere, burning a line on a paper strip as the Sun moves over the sky, in order to record sunshine hours every day. In this picture from 29 March we see a gap exactly at the time of the eclipse.
Animation (08:00–12:00 UTC) Credit: INM, Spain
Eclipse paths
Solar eclipse diagram
Complete path of the solar eclipse 29 March 2006 (Credit: NASA)
Total and annular solar eclipse paths: 2001–2020 (Credit: NASA)
Animation of the eclipse path (Credit: NASA)
Other image sources
Relative humidity recorded at Manavgat, Turkey, 09:00–12:33 UTC (Credit: Turkish State Meteorological Service)
Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at the Turkish State Meteorological Service (Credit: Turkish State Meteorological Service)
2005
Europe & northern Africa
3 Oct, Iberian Peninsula, Libya, Sudan, Kenya
By Gordon Bridge, Livia Briese and Jochen Kerkmann
On Monday, 3 October 2005, an annular eclipse of the Sun was visible within a narrow corridor which traversed the Iberian Peninsula and stretched across the African continent. An annular eclipse differs from a total eclipse in that the Moon appears too small to completely cover the Sun (the Moon was too far away from the Earth). As a result, the Sun turned into a 'ring of fire', i.e. the Moon was surrounded by an bright ring or annulus formed by the uneclipsed outer perimeter of the Sun's disc.
A partial eclipse was seen within a much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which included Europe, western Asia, the Middle East, India and large parts of Africa.
As seen from the Meteosat-8 images below, one of the best places to view the event was in the Spanish capital, Madrid, where thousands came out on to the streets (unlike most of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was cloud-free). In the visible images and animations below, one can nicely follow the shadow of the Moon as it crosses Libya (upper right image), Sudan (lower left) and Kenya (lower right).
It is worthwhile noting that the event could also be observed in the Meteosat-8 infrared channels (see animation of IR10.8 channel, 03:00–13:00 UTC) in the form of a moving pale area (i.e. cooler ground) mirroring the shadow seen in the visible channels. The area covered by the shadow of the Moon was about 7 to 8K cooler than the surrounding area.
Finally, the RGB composite images below also show a massive fire over Portugal with a large smoke plume extending westwards over the Eastern Atlantic. Furthermore, a dust storm can be observed over the Algerian desert (see the RGB composite IR12.0–IR10.8, IR10.8–IR8.7, IR10.8, also called the dust RGB).
Animation (05:00–13:00 UTC)
Other images
Animation of VIS0.8 channel (07:00–11:30 UTC. Source: INM)
Animation of IR10.8 channel (03:00–13:00 UTC)
Animation of RGB composote NIR1.6, VIS0.8, VIS0.6 (full disc) (05:00–13:00 UTC)
Animation of RGB composote NIR1.6, VIS0.8, VIS0.6 (northern hemisphere) (05:00–13:00 UTC)
Animation of RGB composote HRV, HRV, IR10.8 (Iberian Peninsula) (06:00–12:00 UTC)
2002
Australia
4 Dec
During the total eclipse of the Sun on 4 December Meteosat-5 observed the shadow of the Moon moving across the Earth's surface.
The images of the eclipse from 4 December can be seen via the link in the table below. An animated sequence of the images is also available.
2001
Africa
21 June, southern Africa
During the total eclipse of the Sun on 21 June 2001 Meteosat-6 observed the shadow of the Moon using a special scanning mode.
Instead of covering the full Earth disc in half-hourly intervals, a large part of the southern hemisphere was scanned in 10-minute intervals. This allowed for a more rapid observation sequence of the movement of the Moon's shadow along the Earth's surface.
In the figure below the path of the shadow across Europe is indicated.
EUMETSAT's activities during the solar eclipse
- Meteosat images were made available to observe the shadow of the Moon during the solar eclipse of 21 June 2001.
- The in-orbit stand-by spacecraft, Meteosat-6, positioned at around 9°W, was used to provide the limited scans of the Eclipse region.
- Meteosat-7 (providing the operational service) performed its usual 30-minute scanning schedule to provide normal operational data from its orbital position at 0° longitude.
- Meteosat-6 performed three scans per half-hour slot (i.e. one scan every 10 minutes).
- All images scanned were rectified to the nominal sub-satellite point of 0° longitude.
1999
Europe
11 Aug
The total eclipse of the Sun on 11 August 1999 was observed by Meteosat-6.
Instead of covering the full Earth disc in half-hourly intervals, a large part of the northern hemisphere was scanned in 10-minute intervals. This allowed for a more rapid observation sequence of the movement of the Moon's shadow along the Earth's surface.
In the figure below the path of the shadow across Europe is indicated.
EUMETSAT's activities during the solar eclipse
- Meteosat images were made available to observe the shadow of the Moon during the solar eclipse of 11 August 1999.
- The in-orbit stand-by spacecraft, Meteosat-6, positioned at around 9°W, was used to provide the limited scans of the eclipse region.
- Meteosat-7 (providing the operational service) performed its usual 30-minute scanning schedule to provide normal operational data from its orbital position at 0° longitude.
- Meteosat-6 performed 3 scans per half-hour slot (i.e. 1 scan every 10 minutes).
- All images scanned were rectified to the nominal sub-satellite point of 0° longitude.
- On the day of the eclipse four additional WEFAX formats were introduced into the nominal Meteosat-7 dissemination schedule S9904M01 on channel A1.
Shadow of the Moon as seen by Meteosat
Other image source
NASA webpage about the solar eclipse
1998
Atlantic Ocean
26 Feb, Pacific, Carbbean
On 26 February a total eclipse of the Sun occurred in the Pacific and the Caribbean Oceans.
In animation below a loop of images taken by Meteosat-7 (located at 10°W at that time) is shown. While the terminator is crossing the image westwards, the shadow of the Moon can be seen over the Caribbean area travelling eastwards.
On the composite of five images separated by 30 minutes, taken by GOES-8, the shadow of the Moon on the Earth can be easily seen.
