Eclipse context

This composite image of the Sun and its corona was taken by the ESA/NASA SOHO satellite and ESA's Proba-2 satellite yesterday, during the time of Earth’s total solar eclipse.

The central image shows an extreme-ultraviolet image of the solar disc taken by Proba-2 at 18:55 GMT, while the corona and extended atmospheric features are seen by SOHO in the red image from 2–6 solar radii, and beyond in blue (SOHO can see up to about 32 solar radii) at 18:48 and 19:06 GMT, respectively. The black circular region corresponds to an occulting mask to cut out direct sunlight that would otherwise obscure the details close to the Sun – similar to the effect of the Moon in a total solar eclipse. As such, these images provide important context for images captured during the eclipse by ground-based astronomers.

The image was composed using JHelioviewer.