Comparisons

Note: In the spirit of prediction, this page defaults to showing the last output of the simulation prior to totality. For 2026, this was the "last-data assimilated" timestamp at 08:00 UT, which was posted online shortly before totality swept across mainland Spain. All predicted imagery uses Earth's perspective at 18:30 UT, the time of totality in Palencia, Spain.

Photograph of the eclipsed Sun (2024 placeholder)
Photo or measurement by:
Sequence Number

Now that totality has come and gone on August 12th, we have the opportunity to compare our prediction to various photographs taken of the corona during totality. Because the way in which the images are processed determines what features one sees, we will include several different types of images for this comparison. As we add new photoes, photos, we carefully aligned and size them to match the field of view and orientation of our prediction imagery. Note: the position of the moon may be different and/or smeared out due to long or co-added exposures in each photo.

Check out the widget above to try out some comparisons; this page is best viewed in a non-mobile browser. Use the opacity slider to fade the overlaid photograph in and out. Use the selection boxes to choose which photo is displayed and/or which image from the prediction is displayed. To blink the images, hold the “b” key on your keyboard. The prediction is a movie: press play to watch how it changed over time, or step through it with the frame buttons, the slider, or the time picker. Use the arrow keys to change the current image time by 6 hours; hold shift while using the arrow keys to change it by 12 hours. Select the “Color Filter” option to blend the images in different color channels (white: overlap, purple: simulation, green: observation).

Use the date picker to explore how the prediction evolved over time, especially as newly emerged regions were assimilated as they rotated into view.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is funded by NASA and NSF. We are grateful to Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) for providing a dedicated allocation at the LaPalma supercomputer and proud to support the North African Telescope Eclipse (NATE) project, led by IAC. We also acknowledge dedicated resources from the ACCESS program and Expanse supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). We thank NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division (NAS) for allocations on the Athena supercomputer that enabled many of the visualizations on this page to be produced rapidly in real-time. We also thank the SDO/HMI team of the Solar Physics Group at Stanford University for their support in providing timely access to HMI vector magnetograph data. Lastly, we are particularly excited to work with the Solar Orbiter PHI team, to conduct the farside assimilation experiment in near-real-time.