The solar eclipse in Africa seen from space
Posted by Vitaliy Egorov
05-11-2013 11:35 CST
This post was originally published at Egorov's blog and is reposted here with his permission.
On Sunday, the shadow of the Moon passed across Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. This was the last solar eclipse of the year. The Elektro-L satellite was able to observe the eclipse, and we can see the darkness of the lunar shadow covering Africa.
Electro-L is located in a geostationary orbit and takes photos of Earth every 30 minutes from the same vantage point. So we have a unique pattern that is not seen even from the International Space Station.
The last solar eclipse was in May, 2013, over Australia. Elektro-L was also able to photograph it. Moreover, at our request, Roscosmos changed the mode of operation of the satellite, increasing the frequency of imaging by a factor of two. This allowed us to better see the passage of the Moon's shadow on the mainland.
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