Multiple Objects Crossing the Sun During C2 — Satellites?

I believe that is pollen or such in the air, not very far from the camera. We saw something similar when shooting the 2024 eclipse. You can see many of the objects don’t move in straight lines, but follow the wind.

My guess would be insects, I see this sometimes when taking sky flats.

Also consider that the sun’s elevation when this was taken was very low. It’s looking through a lot of air close to the ground.

Considering how much is up there I would be shocked if you captured nothing lol I have similar footage from 2024 and they were confirmed satellites. Many captured the same objects.

Spacetime Pictures · Aug 23, 2026, 03:20 PM

Olivier Bernard · Aug 22, 2026, 05:51 AM

During the C2 phase of the August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse, I noticed something quite intriguing in my footage.

Several small objects can be seen crossing in front of the Sun in a very short period of time. Many of them appear to behave like satellites, but the number of objects visible during such a brief sequence really surprised me.

The footage was captured with a Canon R5 at approximately 840 mm focal length.

I would be very interested to hear the opinion of the AstroBin community: what do you think these objects are? Satellites, aircraft, atmospheric effects, or something else?

The sequence is much easier to analyze in the original video, especially in 4K and full screen.

🎥 Video: https://app.astrobin.com/i/sulle3

I’d be particularly interested if anyone is able to identify or cross-check any of these objects with satellite data for the exact time of C2

Hi Olivier,

For what it's worth: I was running a small outreach event in Spain for totality, with two dozen people and various instruments.
I had two observers report seeing something "cross the Sun" in the white-light setup, close to totality. At the time I didn't think much of it, but their description matched what can be seen in your video.

Quite anecdotal, but given the distance between us, and If corroborated, could it point to something far away?

Cheers!

Thanks for sharing this. I actually don’t think it’s anecdotal at all.

Astrophotographers have been reporting for years that the increasing number of satellites is becoming a real issue for astronomical imaging from Earth. We constantly see satellite trails crossing our night-sky images.

What I find particularly interesting here is that during a total solar eclipse, we seem to be seeing exactly the same phenomenon — multiple objects crossing the field around the Sun.

So if observers located elsewhere in Spain independently saw similar objects at around the same time, that makes it even more interesting and worth investigating.

In a way, this eclipse may simply be showing in daylight what astrophotographers already see every night: there are now a huge number of satellites above us.

That’s precisely why I shared the video — to compare observations and try to identify exactly what we’re seeing.

Exactly! That’s the next step.

Personally, I find the pollen/insect explanation increasingly difficult to believe, especially considering the number of objects, their apparent trajectories, and now the fact that other observers in Spain reported seeing something crossing the Sun around the same period.

But rather than speculate, I’d really like someone experienced with satellite tracking to analyse the exact location, time and trajectories and see if we can match some of these objects with known satellites.

That would give us a much more definitive answer. I’ll definitely keep this topic updated if we manage to identify them!Spacetime Pictures · Aug 23, 2026, 03:25 PM

Very good point Olivier!

Now we need someone satellite-savy to try and point at which ones it could be.

Looking forward for the follow-up on this topic.

This is simply wrong. An ISS transit across the solar disk does not last 2.5 seconds.

Typical transit durations are around 0.6 to 1.5 seconds, depending on the geometry and observing location. The example here is 0.66 s.

So if the analysis is based on an ISS transit lasting 2.5 seconds, the premise is already incorrect. Not really worth going any further with that argument.Tony Gondola · Aug 23, 2026, 04:14 PM

It takes the ISS about 2.5 sec. to transit the solar disk. It or any other object in LEO is going to track as a straight line at this focal length. Most of these objects are moving too slowly and many are not moving in straight lines.

The objects are also illuminated, you can see them against the dark lunar disk as well as against the sky background, Satellites would not do that under this lighting configration.

The objects also appear to be of different sizes.

Others have reported seeing similar objects (not necessarily the same objects) from different locations.

Last item is the elevation of the telescope or lens was extremely low.

I don’t know what the actual focal length and F/stop that was used for this video but you might find it interesting to calculate the depth of field of the actual configuration you used.

John Hayes · Aug 22, 2026, 03:21 PM

That’s interesting. They appear to be fairly well focused so if they are caused by something “nearby”, the objects would have to be more than about 8-10 meters away. So that’s plausible. The field is fairly small so it could certainly be caused by small insects or particulates in the air.

John

I agree with John. When I used to go out birding, especially images taken at sunset would show a lot of these particulates/pollens. They appear when you take images toward the Sun, so it's no surprise to see them during an eclipse. Some in your video (for example, around 0:24) look exactly like pollen. We even intentionally go into such fields to give the image an artistic look.