PROBA2 observes a double eclipse

On January 4, SWAP and LYRA observed the partial solar eclipse.
The SWAP movie is available here. It shows a combination of the partial occultation of the Sun by the moon, and a ’sunset’ due to PROBA2 moving within the shadow of the Earth and its atmosphere. Read more here.

Also the radiometer LYRA observed the unusual alignment of Sun, Moon, Earth and PROBA2 in full glory. Below the attenuation of the signal is seen in the 4 LYRA passbands of unit 3. The first dip shows the partial solar eclipse, the second drop of signal is due to the absorption of EUV light in the Earth’s atmosphere.

More PNG quicklook images of January 4 can be found here. The FITS files are available here.

PROBA2’s observations of the eclipse were broadcasted on television and published on several webpages, see links below:

• SWAP eclipse picture Boston.com’s Big Picture photo blog
• BBC Stargazing Live showed the SWAP movie
• A. De Groof gave an interview on TV Brussel on the partial solar eclipse (in Dutch). A PROBA2/SWAP movie was used to show the observations and was broadcasted on TV.
• C. Marqué (ROB) gave an interview on RTL-TVI on the partial solar eclipse (in French). Again the PROBA2/SWAP movie was used as illustration in the news flash.
• Norwegian news paper
• http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01…
• South African Defence website
• Futura Science (F)
• https://www.cieletespace.fr/node/6541