Another view of the August 2026 eclipse

We are quite sure that by now you have heard that on August 12 a total solar eclipse was visible in Greenland, Iceland, Russia, Portugal and, of course, Spain! A large partial eclipse was observed from many European and African countries, as well as the United States and Canada.

If you did not secure your eclipse glasses on time, chances were slim to still find one. Not to worry, Proba-2 had you covered. Its LYRA and SWAP instruments were set to observe the partial eclipse from space, where they almost always have clear "skies" and unobstructed views of the Sun.

Thanks to its fast sun-synchronous orbit, Proba-2 crossed the Moon's shadow multiple times, allowing the instruments to catch not one, but three partial eclipses. During the third passage, 68% of the solar disk was covered in SWAP's field-of-view. 

Click here to view a simulation of the expected eclipse as seen from the SWAP telescope.

Planned Observations

LYRA Observations

As with earlier eclipses, LYRA conducted a dedicated campaign using one of its backup units (Unit 3) to obtain higher-quality measurements. The resulting data are stored in the event directory.

The plots below show the second and third passage of the Moon in front of the LYRA instrument. Channels 1, 3, and 4 observations are in 1 sec resolution. The green line indicates channel 2 which is heavily degraded. Therefore measurements were made with a 20 sec resolution.

SWAP Observations

SWAP operated in high-cadence mode, capturing on average one image every 20 seconds. Calibrated PNG images and movies of the event are made available in the same directory.

Click on the image below for a movie that shows the SWAP observations of this eclipse.

Data Use Policy

Contacting the PROBA2 Team