Meteosat views of Venus
9 July 2015 02:45 UTC–10 July 02:00 UTC and 21 June 23:00 UTC
Meteosat-8 took a closer look at the planet Venus when it was partially illuminated by the Sun, in early July.
22 October 2020
09 July 2015
By Milan Klinc (EUMETSAT)
This was made possible by a favourable alignment allowing the Meteosat satellites to observe Venus during a period of particularly intense brightness — a relatively rare opportunity.
In order to take full advantage of this special event, members of the EUMETSAT Astronomy Club calculated that the SEVIRI HRV upper window position could follow Venus travelling through the instrument field of view on Meteosat-8 during maximum brightness.
EUMETSAT's operational teams evaluated Meteosat-8 imaging, starting on the night of 8-9 July and subsequently produced some impressive images.
Figures 1 and 2 show respectively examples of a Meteosat-8 raw and processed HRV image, compared to a computer simulated view to Venus.
HRV (raw)
HRV (processed)
Earlier, in June, from the advantage point of its inclined orbit, Meteosat-7 was also able to observe Venus (Figure 3). However, the Meteosat-8 images collected by the HRV channel of SEVIRI were much better in resolution and happened to coincide with the period of maximum brightness for Venus.
Related Content
See Venus at Its Most Brilliant Tonight (Space.com)
Previous case studies
Meteosat-7 'sees' another satellite (21 Feb 2015)
'Blue Moon' as seen by MSG-3 (31 Aug 2012)
Moon as seen by Meteosat-6 (12 Oct 2009)
