In July, we looked at out the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. This month for the Pléiades 1 – Pléiades Neo Point of Interest, we check out Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland.

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About the Point of Interest: A church and national sanctuary in Iceland called Hallgrímskirkja towers over Reykjavík. Its concrete facade pays homage to modernism and serves as a reminder of the stark Icelandic landscape. The church is named after the 17th Century clergyman Hallgrímur Pétursson, author of Hymns of the Passion. Hallgrímskirkja is an Evangelical-Lutheran church and is a part of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Iceland. The iconic structure happens to be one of the most visited places by tourists in Iceland. Every day, thousands of people visit the site, which is an active church still.

These two satellite images prvide an aerial view of the Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland. You can see the smooth, curved outline of the church in the 50-cm enhanced color Pléiades 1 image taken August 13, 2025. Hallgrimskirkja casts a huge shadow across the ground below, which is captured in the 30-cm Pléiades Neo 3 color image taken August 31, 2025. (Credit, PLEIADES © CNES 2026, Distribution Airbus DS.)

Fun Factoids: (1) The stained glass above the entrance to the church, and then the glass artwork in the doors into the nave, pulpit and baptismal font are the work of artist Leif Breiðfjörður. The decoration of the pulpit includes glass images of Hallgrímur Pétursson’s autograph of the Passion Psalms, as well as symbols of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The back of the pulpit is a glass image showing the mark of Christ’s arrest, the Greek letters XP, and on both sides of it are the letters alpha and omega. (2) The church’s baptismal font from 2001 is made of Icelandic columnar rock and Czech lead crystal. The crystal is inscribed with scripture from Mark 16:16: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” (3) In the tower of Hallgrímskirkja, there are three large church bells and a carillon with 29 bells. The carillon is the first of its kind in Iceland. The church is one of three in the capital that beats time. The bells are rung to mark the general calendar, masses and other church ceremonies. (4) Hallgrímur Pétursson, Iceland’s most famous religious poet, was born in Gröf on Höfðastrond in 1614. When a group of Icelanders, who had been captured in Iceland and enslaved by pirates from Algeria, were bought free and stopped in Copenhagen on their way home, Hallgrímur was asked to review Christian teachings with the people after they had spent years among Muslims. Reverend Hallgrímur is best known for his Passion Psalms, fifty in number, which are a meditation on the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. (5) At 244 feet tall, Hallgrimskirkja is the largest church in Iceland and second tallest building in the country. (6) State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson‘s design of the church was commissioned in 1937. He is said to have designed it to resemble the trap rocks, mountains and glaciers of Iceland’s landscape, in particular its columnar basalt “organ pipe” formations (such as those at Svartifoss).

The 50-cm Pléiades 1 High-Resolution Satellite Constellation

The Pléiades 1 constellation (or at least part of it!) has been in orbit since December 2011 and if you have not had a chance to check out any sample imagery, take a few moments and have a look at the gallery on our website. If you work with high-resolution imagery, you should consider Pléiades 1 and Pléiades Neo for your next geospatial projects.

A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a well-established archive and as a new collection, including 50-centimeter (cm) pansharpened imagery and 50-cm panchromatic – 2-meter (m) 4-band multispectral bundles. We are happy to discuss the technical specifications, pricing and tasking options available with both of these satellite constellations.

The 30-cm Pléiades Neo High-Resolution Satellite Constellation

Pléiades Neo is our newest high-resolution satellite constellation. The first Neo satellite went up in April 2021 and the second in August of the same year. This 30-centimeter resolution constellation will add two more satellites in the next few months and upgrade from daily to intraday revisits. Pléiades Neo has six multispectral bands with 1.2-meter resolution, including a deep blue and two infrared bands, along with a 30-centimeter resolution panchromatic band.

The archive is growing every day, and the satellites are available for new collections, making Pléiades Neo the perfect solution for site monitoring. Check out our beautiful sample images in the Pléiades Neo gallery.

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1 can be found on our website here; while the same can be found here for the Pléiades Neo constellation.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about Pléiades 1 and/or Pléiades Neo. We can be reached at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.