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sentinel-2-night-time-acquisitions·dataset

Experimental Sentinel-2 night imagery campaign (Copernicus)

Sentinel-2 Night-Time Acquisitions
land ESA ESA Copernicus
In plain English

What it measures. An experimental set of night-time images over selected places, testing whether a daytime mapping satellite can capture useful pictures after dark.

How it's made. Made by ESA Copernicus during a December 2025 trial campaign using the Sentinel-2 imaging instrument over two orbital cycles.

How & where you'd use it. A research dataset targeting sites like oil and gas facilities, cities, industry, and ports, gathered to assess future night-imaging capability.

What's measured

CopernicusESAEUGlobalImageryMSINight-timeSatelliteSentinelSentinel-2INS-VICINS-RAW

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2025-12-03 → 2025-12-22
  • Spatial extent-155.067729947, -15.770203709, 141.436888607, 61.742478625

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission was conceived as a daytime-only imaging mission, focusing on land and coastal waters with high spatial resolution across visible, near-infrared, and shortwave-infrared spectral bands. As part of Sentinel-2 Next Generation mission preparation, ESA is investigating the potential for night-time acquisitions, focusing on specific regions and limited revisit scenarios. To assess this capability, an experimental night imaging campaign was conducted in December 2025 over two orbital cycles. The campaign targeted selected regions identified from user requests and mission analysis, including oil and gas facilities, urban and industrial areas, and maritime zones. More information: https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/news/2026-6-3-copernicus-sentinel-2-night-time-campaign-dataset

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-2-night-time-acquisitions"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.