Partial eclipse in Belgium - 10 June 2021

Tue, 06/08/2021 - 11:15 — Elke D'Huys

On 10 June 2021, the Belgian PROBA2 Science Center team will be able to witness a solar eclipse with their own eyes (weather permitting). In parts of Russia and Canada one can witness this event as an even more spectacular annular eclipse. From Belgium, the eclipse will only be partial and the Moon will take a small bite out of the top of the Sun around midday (maximum at 12:19 local time). To celebrate this rare event, we are launching an eclipse photo challenge (more details here).

The PROBA2 satellite will cross the Moon's shadow as many as four times during this eclipse and in the images made by the SWAP EUV imager onboard, a large part of the solar disk will be covered for some of these transits. Indeed, the animation below shows that during the third transit up to 84% of the solar disk will be covered by the Moon! SWAP will be taking images at high cadence throughout the eclipse periods and also the LYRA radiometer will make detailed observations of the event, turning on its less degraded units for the occasion.

LYRA Observations

As for all eclipses, LYRA will activate its backup units, which acquire in parallel with the nominal unit. The instrument monitors the progressive extinction of the solar light in its channels that observe in the ultraviolet (red and green curves) and extreme ultraviolet (black and blue curves). LYRA observations will become available in the event directory.

SWAP observations

We will make high cadence observations with SWAP and produce our typical sets of calibrated PNG images (with logos and timestamp, with timestamp only, and without logos or timestamp), as well as movies of the event. All the movies and images of the eclipse are collected in dedicated directories on our webpages. The event directory will also contain a specially selected SWAP image to promote the eclipse. This is the image with the largest part of the Sun occulted by the Moon.

Data Use Policy

All PROBA2 images and movies used in outreach and the media should be credited to "ESA/ROB". Additional information about the terms of use for PROBA2 data is available on the PROBA2 website.

Contacting the PROBA2 Team

All requests for media comments, data assistance, or planning requests can be directed to the SWAP and LYRA teams via swap_lyra@oma.be.